


Con Game Gamblers

by SteampunkChuckster



Series: Chuck Versus the Con Game [4]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apologies to Ocean's Eleven, Chuck Versus the Con Game, Chuck fic, Con Artists, ConVerse, Crime fic, F/M, Gambling, apologies to the game of BlackJack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteampunkChuckster/pseuds/SteampunkChuckster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's four months after the Dubai episode in which Chuck and Sarah had their interesting and tumultuous first meeting. Chuck has since concocted a beautiful little con involving card tricks and a few colorful characters you might recognize. Against his better judgment, Chuck decides to recruit one of the best con artists in the business for the job. Will she shoot him this time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU, ConVerse. Chuck and Sarah meet for a second time and are now working together on a particularly convoluted job.

Her mark was slouched over the bar, his glossy eyes staring at the straight scotch swirling in the glass in his hand. He'd obviously had a hard night. Maybe he lost a mistress, or he'd been forced to get rid of one of his hundreds of employees he never bothered to call by their proper names.

She inwardly scoffed and moved closer to the man.

Leaning over the bar, she caught the attention of the bartender. She asked for a whiskey sour and felt the wealthy sap's eyes run down her tall, athletic form. When the woman came back with her drink, she thanked her and paid.

It was a little surprising her mark hadn't offered to buy it for her, instead choosing to stare at her, but she brushed it off and walked to a nearby table, sitting completely alone and swirling her drink in her hand. She hated whiskey sours.

She hated bars.

And she hated that she'd been unable to get what happened four months ago out of her head. It was in her nature to feel guilty about things she'd had to do to survive. Even the smallest things like stealing from the Salvation Army at Christmastime with her dad when she was a child. That, of course, had never stopped her from doing what she had to do, and it hadn't stopped her from taking the jobs she had no choice but to take.

She had more control now that she'd established herself as a legitimate con artist. She rarely played the hired killer, but she knew how to kill when she had to.

Four months ago, when Chuck the amateur hacker stood in her hotel room looking rather bravely down the barrel of her gun, there had been no reason to kill. But she'd threatened all the same. It stuck with her, like many parts of her job had.

But never had anything stuck with her for this long. _Four months._

Had her need to protect herself really reached that level of absurdity? She felt disgusted with herself, and then she felt annoyed that even after this long, she still felt just as guilty as she had a few hours after she'd left Dubai. Her first meal in Athens the next day hadn't stayed down.

And it terrified her that her actions towards him had created in her such a strong physical reaction.

His stricken face when he saw her twisting that silencer onto the end of her gun. Why hadn't she stopped then? What the hell was wrong with her? He'd confused her and all but charmed her, even after she'd caught him trying to steal from her. But he'd only had a tranq gun on him. And when she was at her worst, he'd had absolutely nothing. No weapons. Nothing to defend himself with but his own natural, odd charm.

But it was over. It had happened and it was over. And she hadn't forgotten.

Even when she'd made him think she was going to kill him, he just stood there staring. Like he knew something she didn't. It was unnerving. And frustrating. And she couldn't stop thinking about it.

She'd reviewed their meeting over and over in her mind, and she was almost convinced Chuck had more control in the situation than she'd realized at the time. She wouldn't have killed him, and somehow he knew that. He knew it when he hadn't even known her more than a few minutes.

It made her curious, and she'd been _so_ curious that she became angry. Angry that she couldn't let go. Angry that she couldn't forgive herself. Angry that she couldn't figure this guy out. And angry that she wanted to figure him out in the first place.

Her mark shifted on his stool and she considered, only for a moment, just leaving. She wasn't in the right place for this, mentally. But she'd planned for weeks, and she was here now. So she stayed put and rubbed her fingers over the barrel of her S&W under her coat. It was oddly reassuring having it there. It was the one thing she understood. She knew all of its parts, what it was capable of, and she knew she had complete control over it.

Unlike the rest of her life.

That thought made her roll her eyes at herself and she took a long gulp of her drink, fighting down the urge to choke.

Sarah had been off her game since Dubai. Not completely, of course. She'd pulled some successful cons, but nothing more than quick swipes with little to no planning. It was all she was sure she could pull off when she was so distracted.

Because it was easier to be angry than confused, she fumed at her table. She knew she was unbalanced. But who the hell in this business wasn't? Chuck? Chuck was definitely unbalanced.

Or was he?

That was the _really_ frustrating part. He'd been perfectly balanced.

The way he'd stood unflinching in front of her, quite possibly reading her as easily as one reads a magazine. And all the while, she'd been violently acting the part of a cold-hearted killer, thinking she had him under her control.

But it hadn't been control.

And she felt disgusted and played and...unbalanced.

She glanced again at her mark and almost got up to make her move, when suddenly someone swooped into the seat across from her.

She recognized him immediately and her voice caught painfully in her throat. Frustration and the fear that she'd be caught play-acting again swam to the surface and she subconsciously gripped at her gun in her coat.

The worst part was the relief flooding through her. Part of her had wondered if he'd been nabbed by the authorities. She'd knocked him out for at least three to four hours, she assumed. And while she'd left him an escape, and a cruel, debasing and unfunny message (she had to add begrudgingly), there'd been a chance he hadn't made it.

She fought the relief from her features, annoyed that he seemed to see it before she could hide it. Could she hide nothing from him? Anger was easier and she clutched at it like a security blanket when he smiled.

"I know what you're thinking," he said, not even trying to hide his pleasure. "However did he find me?" He lifted the computer bag from where it was slung diagonally across his body and let it down again with a wink.

"Get the hell out of here. I'm in the middle of something."

"I know that."

He knew everything, didn't he? She swallowed the guilt and disgust as she remembered how she'd twisted the silencer onto the end of her pistol. She hated what seeing him again was doing to her insides.

"Then leave me alone."

"Oh come on. The poor sap isn't worth more than two hundred grand to you."

She raised an eyebrow. "And that's two hundred grand that I didn't have before."

"Touché." He pursed his lips and pointed to her glass. "What are you having?"

"Whiskey sour." _Or don't you know that, too, just by looking at it?_ she thought to herself in absurd frustration.

"Wow. Didn't take you for a whisk—"

"Enough with the small talk bullshit. Get out of here." She wasn't dealing with the situation well, and she knew it. The word unbalanced danced tauntingly in her mind again and she almost growled at it.

He just stared at her for a moment, narrowing his eyes before leaning a little closer. "Fine." She nearly sighed in relief. He fell back against the chair again. "I'm an idiot for thinking you'd ever be interested in a difficult job with a solid crew. And it's a pretty fantastic take. Oh, much is the pity." He made to stand up.

"Damn it, wait a second!" she hissed. Why wasn't he acting more perturbed by the fact that he was looking his tormentor in the face again? He was insane, maybe? The thought that he'd had more control over the situation four months ago than she had, even when she was the one with the gun, reared its head again. She glowered as she realized he was winning again.

He smiled and fell back to his seat.

"How much does it pay?" was all she could make herself ask. Even when she wanted to ask _Are you mad?!_

"It'll depend."

The vague idiot.

"Fine. Then what's the job?"

He shrugged. "Sorry. It's yay or nay. You tell me you're in, we shake on it, and we get the hell outta here."

She cocked her gun under the table and saw him smile widely. That wasn't exactly the look she'd been expecting. "You're gonna tell me or I'll shoot this gun that's pointed at you under the table." She held it tightly in her hand, knowing this was just the same as before. Taunting him with threats on his life when she had no intention of killing him. And he knew it. His face held none of the uncertainty that it had in the dark hotel room four months before.

"It just so happens I've got a gun pointed at you under the table, as well."

She snorted. "Yeah, a tranq gun."

"Actually, not this time."

She stared at him for a moment, her back rigid. A thousand things happened at once, not the least of which was the fear that he'd played her even more than she'd thought. He was the dangerous one. She'd underestimated him, assumed he was a novice. He'd played the cartoon-loving, amateurish nerd. And now he held a gun to her under the table. A real gun. She'd walked straight into this.

"Nah, it's a tranq gun." His tongue poked out of the cheeky grin. "Gotcha, though."

She bit back a growl and shut her eyes to control herself. And just as suddenly, she felt laughter bubble up from inside of her. She turned it into a cough and opened her eyes to peer at him, putting a hard look on her face just as quickly.

"Will you leave me the hell alone, already? I'm not in the mood for games." She leaned forward and spoke through clenched teeth. "I _will_ shoot you this time."

"No, you won't."

"Pretty confident for having an S&W pointed at your balls." She smirked when he swallowed loudly but he kept the placid look on his face, to his credit.

"You really are somethin' else." He shook his head a little. "Still doing this, huh?" His eyes were suddenly serious and full of something she ignored vehemently, and avoided like the plague.

"Doing what?" she snapped, even though he knew she was fully aware of his meaning.

"Also, you're extremely impressive," he quickly continued. "I have to tell you, it took a lot of work to find you again. You're like a ninja."

"Thank you. But I'm assuming you're aware compliments won't get you anywhere. And at this moment, I have a mark waiting for me. So if you'll excuse me." He didn't move. "That means leave."

"I'm well aware of what that means," he teased in a low voice, leaning back into his chair. "I'm also aware that if you shoot me—and you won't—you not only lose the opportunity to work _my_ job—and I gotta say, it's a great job with plenty of hijinks and adventure and it'll be fun, I promise—you'll also lose your mark over there." He glanced at her potential mark. "Poor sap won't want to go anywhere near a woman who just shot a man in the gut."

"My gun isn't pointed at your gut, ass hole."

He laughed out loud, his eyes sparkling in absolute glee. "God, you're crazy. You know that?"

His words struck too close to home, and she felt anger seeping through her. She was crazy. She was unbalanced. And screw him for not seeing it, for willfully seeing something else that she was sure didn't exist. Screw him for not running the hell away. "Tell me the job."

"Alright, fine. You got me." He leaned forward. "Miss Franco-Dormer, how would you like to be a member of a con in which you'll pilfer and filch the Dickens out of a couple of sappish blokes with too much money on their hands?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "What are we talking here?"

"Set up a gambling house, run it for one night, cheat the bastards out of a grip load of money, make them feel like they had a nice time…They leave, we close up shop, we split the winnings, and we never see each other again." He shrugged.

"A gambling house, huh? And how is this supposed to work?"

"I haven't ironed out the kinks yet, but it's a sure thing. Card tricks and the like."

"How many are in on this, then?" She pulled the gun and made a show of it to make sure he did the same. She watched as he pulled his arm back and holstered his tranq.

"I haven't gotten everyone I need yet. Actually, you're the first person I've approached." He looked a bit sheepish, making him look like a little boy rather than the full grown man he was.

"Why me?" She quirked her eyebrow.

"You're impressive. And I feel like I can trust you."

She laughed. "That's definitely a mistake."

"Maybe. You've almost killed me enough times." The way he said it made the guilt and anger abate. She didn't know how to handle him, and she knew if she took this job, it wouldn't get any easier. And for some reason she was okay with it.

"Hm…all in one night, too." She smirked a little playfully and he grinned. She hadn't forgotten Chuck's grin. It was four months ago when she'd last seen him. In fact, she hadn't thought she'd ever see him again. But she remembered the way his nose wrinkled…

He was mildly attractive when he grinned like that.

Just mildly.

"The fellas I have in mind will make seven of us. The hit should be around ten to twelve million."

Sarah sat forward in her seat, her mark and the contradicting emotions she'd been having about her frustrating companion all but forgotten. "So that's…almost two million per person."

"Bit more than that, yep."

Sarah stared at him for a few minutes and he stared back with no small amount of confidence. "If I sign on, what are we talking? What will I be doing?"

"I'm not sure."

"Then what do you want me for?"

"Uh…" His confidence dwindled a bit as his shoulders sagged and an unsure frown settled on his face. "Okay, honestly…" He took a deep breath and he was suddenly the same guy who had quoted Darkwing Duck within five minutes of meeting her under dangerous circumstances. "You're like that person in high school who everybody secretly hates because you're perfect at everything, you know?" She just gave him a blank stare. "You don't know. Okay. I'll try again. You're that person who's best all around. The star… _whatever_ player on the whatever team. The lead actress in all the plays. Honor roll. Student body president. I'm not making my point here. I need you on this team because I don't want to blow this job."

"Still not following."

"I don't see this going south if you're on the team."

"Now I'm following." She leaned forward. "You need me because I'm good at this whole con artist thing and you're not."

"Wow. Great. That's great. You're so good at this making-me-feel-bad-about-myself thing. Congrats." In spite of everything, he was grinning again. "Will you join Team Chuck in the con of a lifetime?"

"Mmm…" She twisted her mouth to the side and crossed her arms, looking over at her mark as he put the money on the bar and began clamoring sloppily to his feet, almost tipping the stool over.

"Come ooon. It'll be like Ocean's Eleven, except with a lot less money. And no Brad Pitt. Or George Clooney." He paused. "Or Matt Damon. And more danger because this isn't a movie. Besides that, it'll be like Ocean's Eleven."

Sarah fought a smile by drinking the whiskey sour she hated. Why hadn't she just gotten a beer? She liked beer.

"I have conditions," she said.

"I'm listening." The hope in his face was a little unsettling, so she looked at her mark's departing figure. If she was going to make her move, it had to be now or never.

"First of all, my name isn't Franco or Dormer. So stop calling me that."

"Done. What's your name, then?" She glared. "What's the second condition?" he rushed.

"Never call it Team Chuck. This is not Team Chuck. And don't pull some Ocean's Eleven type name out of your ass either, because I'm pretty sure no self-respecting con artist will ever agree to it."

"Mmm, fine. That's a harder one. But okay." He grinned yet again and she looked away from it, swiping her finger along the condensation on her glass idly.

"Walker."

"What?"

"That's what you'll call me."

"Wa—Walker? Like Skywalker?" His face lit up and she felt its warmth from across the table. "That's awe—"

" _Do not_ call me Skywalker. Ever. I will shoot you."

"You're _way_ too comfortable throwing that phrase around. Death is a very serious thing."

"Look on the bright side, Chuck. It won't be all that serious for you if you're dead." She pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow.

Chuck cleared his throat. "Right. Skywalker is not a part of my vocabulary for as long as this con lasts. Just Walker. Any first name?"

"Walker."

"Walker Walker?"

"Shut up."

"So Walker. Like Madonna? Or Cher?"

"Stop."

He sniggered as she picked up her handbag and stood from the table. Her mark was long gone. "Well then. Send the information to the number I gave you."

"Oh, uh, you didn't give me a number."

"It's in your shoe."

Confusion furrowed his brow and his mouth fell open. "Wh—uh, what?"

"My number. Check your shoe. See you when I see you, Chuck."

As she walked past him, she ran a hand over his dark curls and smirked at the way his eyes slipped shut and a goofy grin spread across his face.

This would be interesting, and she wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.

}o{

Chuck raised the mallet and crashed it down on the worn-down lock of the side entrance door. He glanced down the alleyway to see if anyone noticed the loud noise. Satisfied that they hadn't, he pulled the rusted padlock away and opened the door. It swung a bit crookedly but with a little work, it could look alright again. Some paint, maybe. Fixed hinges. Somebody might be able to do that. Right? Sure.

He ducked in and was hit by a cloud of dust.

After a sneezing fit that lasted a good minute, he walked carefully down some rickety stairs and looked around the place for a light. When he was unsuccessful after a few minutes of blindly running his hands along the walls, he turned on his flashlight and swept it around the room, wondering why he hadn't just whipped it out in the first place.

The basement was absolutely empty, save for a few broken chairs, a table, and a shattered lightbulb that looked like it was from the 1960s.

"Well damn," he muttered to himself.

When he walked back into the alleyway, he did his best to stay positive. He'd found the abandoned building a few weeks before and thought it might make the perfect base for their operations.

It was in the West End, near the Thames, but in an older, more rundown area that was close to the dock yards. There were a few buildings around the place that were a step away from being purchased and bulldozed to make room for a giant Tesco. That would take months to settle, Chuck had discovered while researching the paperwork that surrounded the project. This meant the building would be practically ignored for three months at the least. That gave them plenty of time.

First, he'd have to clean it up a bit.

It took an entire day and part of the next, but he scrubbed and polished the black and white checkered marble floor, killed the spiders, swept away their webs, and waxed every last Greco-Roman pillar until the room sparkled. It wasn't up to its original 1920s gambling hall form just yet, but he knew with help, he could get it that way.

Although, he would need everyone to show up at the first meeting in two days' time. And there were still a few loose ends to tie down with the marks he'd singled out.

In all honesty, the only part of the job he was worried about was Walker. She was imperative to his plan, not only for her skills, but for her capability to do whatever needed to be done.

And she was a natural improviser. He'd tracked her movements for four months now, and she was quite honestly the best con artist he'd ever seen. The others were good, capable, maybe even above average in their own particular areas of expertise, but he hadn't been lying to Walker when he'd told her she was best all around.

She could do anything and everything better than anyone. She was perhaps the most important part of this whole con job—outside of his own role, of course.

But she was also the most steadfastly independent, stubborn person of the criminals he was recruiting for the job. He didn't know if working on a crew was really her thing or not.

On top of that, their first meeting hadn't been very positive. She'd spent most of it threatening to shoot him in the head. As certain as he had been that she didn't have it in her to kill him, especially when he was unarmed, the fear that she might be a little insane riddled him.

It was obvious her emotional issues were more serious than the average young woman. He scoffed to himself. _That's an understatement._

But he'd seen something beneath the cold-hearted front. Even while her S&W never wavered as she pointed it at him, and her voice never quivered when she spoke to him while putting on her little show with the silencer, there was a full-blown hurricane swirling in her eyes. Confusion, maybe. Annoyance, as well.

But what made him sure he'd had the upper hand in the situation (in spite of not being the one with the weapon) was the sadness in her eyes, in the set of her shoulders, her mouth…

What could have made her this way, he wondered now as he thought of her again. What made her think she had to present herself to him as a cold-blooded killer? He could see her hesitation, and as he thought back to that night, he wondered if she'd even been aware of it herself. Probably not.

Chuck wasn't foolish enough to believe that everyone had gotten into the con game in the same way he had. Some were dragged into it, some were born into, and others (and he suspected Walker was one of them) had gotten into it through desperation.

She had been protecting something deep inside of her, hiding it away. Was it hurt? Vulnerability, sure, but where had it come from? And what made her protect it so ferociously?

Something, and he still had no idea what it was even after four months of thinking of little else, had given him the surety, or at least the deepest hope, that she wouldn't kill him. He'd also thought she wouldn't kiss him, but she surprised him on that front.

He didn't want to think of himself as shallow. He liked to believe that he'd trusted her in that moment when she walked up to him with the silenced pistol not because he was sexually attracted to her and she was half-naked and perfectly built; but because he felt he'd seen something deep inside of her that maybe no one else ever had in her life.

Maybe Chuck was giving himself too much credit.

Maybe what he was doing, approaching this loose cannon of a woman again, was foolhardy and dangerous. But he was drawn to her—perhaps in the way a mosquito is drawn to a burning hot flame, and perhaps he'd get burned. But he had to take the chance. He had to.

She _had_ threatened him with her gun again in the bar he found her in a few days before.

He'd followed her down the road to the almost empty bar and hung around outside, peering through the window and watching her body language as she eyed her mark.

Chuck had known the risk. She'd let him live in her hotel room four months ago. Perhaps it had been dumb luck, maybe he'd caught a cold-blooded murderess on a good night…

But he'd stolen himself, trusting that he'd survive this meeting as well.

He needed her expertise, he needed her trust…he needed _her._

And when he'd left, still a little stunned and startled when her number _had_ been tucked into his converse shoelaces ( _how the hell?!_ ), a little thrown off by how good it felt to have her fingers in his hair for just a moment, he wasn't sure if he was crazy or stupid.

Either way, he had to see her again.

Chuck shook his head at himself.

_Get your head out of the clouds and focus. This isn't about Walker's legitimately heaven-sent blue eyes and perfect smirk. Forget about her legs. And the way her voice cracks when she's amused. Or how she talks through her teeth when she's pissed. Or the deep confusion in her eyes when she doesn't think you are watching. Or the fact that she becomes angry when she feels emotionally threatened. The job, Bartowski. The job!_

Just two more days of constant fretting and preparation before the crew met and began planning. That was…if the meeting went well.

It was going to take a lot of work, and most importantly _trust_ , but he was certain he'd found the right people for the job.

He was certain.

A little ill…but certain.

}o{

Chuck paced fretfully on the ground level of the building where his new con team was already assembling. It was two minutes until nine and five of the six people he was expecting sat in the next room over, eyeing each other suspiciously as they waited. The conversation he'd half expected to break out was nonexistent and it had made him nervous enough to leave, if only for a few moments while he was waiting.

He moved out into the hallway and stared at the entrance one more time. The main building was worse off than the basement where the gambling house would be set up. The wooden floors were dusty, the wallpaper on the walls was peeling, and he'd had to get rid of all of the furniture and buy a new table and chairs for the room where they'd be meeting for the first time. He'd used his own money for everything, rationalizing that he'd get it back and more once the job was through.

His watch read twenty five seconds until 9 pm and his heart began to race as he looked up at the door again. Walker was the only one who hadn't arrived.

Not wanting her to know he was waiting for her, he walked into the room where the others waited and looked down at their expectant faces.

Chuck moved to the head of the table and leaned his palms on the tabletop. He took a deep breath and let his eyes slip shut. This had to work. If it didn't, he'd really have to rethink his lifestyle. And his career choice. Since they were really one in the same.

He'd probably also have to watch his back. These guys were all carrying. His brown gaze settled on the curly-haired, glassy-eyed man sitting at the table staring vacantly at his own fingernail. _Okay, maybe this guy isn't carrying a piece. We'd all be dead if he was. Or he'd have shot himself at the very least._

Looking down at his watch, Chuck noticed that it was 9 pm sharp. He should start. He really should start. She wasn't coming.

But what if she was?

He hurried out of the room and back into the hallway, and was startled when the door burst open, revealing Walker charging into the front lobby, all legs and seriousness.

They met eyes for a moment and as she strode up to him, he felt a debilitating surge of relief sweep through him, so powerful that he had to concentrate on keeping his face impassive. "Walker."

"Chuck."

"Follow me."

She did and he led her into the room where the others were sitting.

Jaws dropped and eyes bugged out, and just about every member of the team sitting at the table tipped over when Walker entered the room. Chuck couldn't exactly say he blamed them. Walker's first impression was stunning to say the least. He'd almost had his head cleaved in two because of it.

"Uh, C-Man, are you crazy? You're bringing in a—"

The short, Indian man's words stilled in his throat when he found a blade pointed at his chin, clutched in the steady grip of the woman he was intent on insulting. Chuck watched with no small amount of trepidation.

"PIZZA!" the threatened man squeaked. "Will we be having pizza? I was told there'd be food here." He swallowed loudly, his eyes fixed on the blade.

Walker pulled her knife in and slid it back beneath her coat in some undisclosed location. "I didn't come all the way to London to be insulted," she snapped over her shoulder at Chuck.

"I apologize for him. Have a seat," he said as he pulled out the chair nearest him. She nodded and took her seat, leaning back into her chair and crossing her legs, her features hard-set and businesslike. He took only a moment to take in her tight gray jeans, black boot heels, and black trench coat. She wore a round-brimmed gray wool hat that looked like it belonged in the 1920s, a black ribbon tying it in to her ensemble. Chuck wasn't exactly a fashion expert, but he knew when a woman looked good and Walker looked damn good.

Then again, that was her thing. Wasn't it?

"First off," he started. "I'd like to thank you all for being here. I'll start by saying the obvious. Any of the information you hear in this room stays in this room. You betray anyone on this team, I can't promise you won't find yourself at the bottom of the Thames."

He saw Walker's dubious eyebrow raise. She knew better, but the others didn't. They believed him to be capable of murder, but she'd witnessed his penchant for tranq darts rather than bullets. Obviously Walker would be even more of a wildcard than he'd expected. This could go very badly. Or it could go very well! (He decided to be positive.)

"I'm just going to get down to business. We'll do introductions later." He walked to the board he'd constructed over the last few days, fit with photographs of their marks and notes, connected with strings that made up a web of information. He ignored the mocking smirk on Walker's face.

"These men are all between the ages of 28 and 36. They're young, filthy rich, and come equipped with all the recklessness a seasoned con artist loves to see." He heard a couple of chuckles and sniggers around the table behind him.

He turned back to his team and flipped the marker in his hand. "The basement of this building has the makings of a good old-fashioned gambling house. It'll be one table, by invitation only. We'll make them feel extra special." He grinned for the effect. "By the end of the night, they'll be bust and we'll be in the money. The last sap leaves, we split the money, and we call it a day."

They all nodded except for the big-chested fellow sitting to Chuck's right, who looked a bit pensive. "What makes you so sure we're gonna win, Big Britches?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking cockily around the lollipop he had shoved in his mouth.

"It's Blackjack, Rye. Piece of cake." Chuck shrugged.

"These will be professional gamblers, if your little chart thingy is correct, son," the wide-girthed black man asked as he popped a donut hole in his mouth from the small bag on the table in front of him. "How do we know they aren't professional cheaters, too?"

"If we all do our jobs, we won't have to worry about it." He looked around to each of the faces, then walked up to the table, leaning forward and eyeing them all. He was nervous, incredibly nervous. He'd checked and checked for loopholes in the plot and was sure he'd sealed them all.

But if any of these men (or woman) walked away from the job, there was no telling what kind of trouble it might cause for everyone else. The con wouldn't work without any one of these artists' expertise.

"Now for introductions." He gestured to his right to the cocky man with the lollipop. "Rye, the flasher, talker, no-nonsense thief extraordinaire. And our very own bouncer. Can we call you Rye?"

"What else would you call me, Stringbean?"

Chuck ignored him and moved on. "Big Mike. My hope is that he intimidates the crap out of the players the moment they enter the house, while simultaneously gaining their respect. You're our security, the big boss, and the one thing that should make the whole con believable for our marks."

Then he moved to the next man, muscled, tall, and stony-faced. "John Casey."

He received a grunt in response. This was a man of few words, which is exactly what they needed. "You'll be a plant at the table. No offense, Casey, but you're a hard ass. We need a hard ass."

"Since when is that offensive?" Another grunt. "'Least I'm not Stringbean."

Chuck saw Walker smirk out of the corner of his eye and blanched, although he decided not to take the bait. "Casey will get the job done. Any job. All jobs. He's efficient, strong, and fantastic at improvisation. You wouldn't know it by looking at him." He smirked at the man's answering glare.

Chuck gestured across the table. "Jeff B—"

"Just Jeff." The curly-haired man sniffed and crossed his arms.

"Right. Uh…Jeff. And this is…just Lester?"

"We're Jeffster." The Indian man leaned forward and slowly spread his palm on the table. "Just Jeffster."

Chuck had wondered if…Jeffster…would end up being a problem. They were the oddballs of the group; the weakest link, as it were. They were unconventional, to say the least, and a little sloppy at times, but they always got the job done. The biggest issue was that they were extremely annoying when they were together, but even more annoying when they were apart. He hoped they wouldn't scare away the other participants in the con.

There was also the worry that Walker might kill them.

Her eyes were already flashing dangerously at the watery smiles Jeff and Lester were giving her. They weren't even trying to be subtle about the fact that they thought she was hot. At least the others had schooled their features at least a little by now.

"Jeff and—Excuse me, Jeffster…"

"Thank you, Charles."

He nodded once at the Lester half of Jeffster.

"They're the foremost experts at counting cards. What was your last take in Reno, gentlemen?"

"Six hundred thousand the first day," Lester started.

"A million the next day. Spread between three casinos," Jeff finished.

They high-fived each other, crossed their arms similarly, and looked back at Chuck.

The computer nerd narrowed his eyes at them and pursed his lips. It was a terrifying thought, Jeffster with more than a couple hundred bucks in their pockets. What would they buy with—No.

He didn't want to know.

"Right. Blackjack seems to be their calling."

"Charles, the ladies would say otherwise." Lester raised an eyebrow and smirked. "The ladies. The ladies are…ladies are calling us. We're calling on ladies. Our calling is the ladies. Are the ladies. We like ladies and ladies like us." He leaned to look at the beautiful young woman sitting directly to his right. Walker ignored him completely, instead sending Chuck an uncomfortable and angry look.

_Time to diffuse this situation._

"Last but certainly not least…" Jeffster sniggered. "Walker. She could lift the Taj Mahal right out of India and nobody would even say a word."

"No wonder," Jeff drawled rakishly, his glassy eyes unfocused as they swept down Walker's thankfully covered legs.

"Alright, honestly—You know what? Never mind." Walker could take care of herself. If one of them ended up with a knee in his groin or a blade in his skull, then so be it. The rest of the crew would make do. "We can all agree that she is a beautiful woman. Right?" There were some vigorous nods and a noncommittal grunt from Casey. "Good. Now that we've got that out of the way, as I was saying, Walker improvises, thinks on her feet, and I'll warrant not a one of you could touch her without ending up flat on your back in a matter of milliseconds."

More sniggers.

"That—That's not what I meant." He blushed a little and ignored Walker's smirk. She was incredibly attractive when she smirked, especially when her blue eyes shone through those long eyelashes.

_God damn it. Damn everything. All to hell. Damn it._

Chuck brought a hand down his face and turned back to the board. "Now that we've all made our introductions—"

"And who are you?" he heard Walker ask. He glanced at her over his shoulder, then turned to regard the rest of them.

With a wide smile, he shrugged and answered quite plainly.

"I'm Charles Carmichael."

}o{

A single table sat in the center of the dark room, one light hanging directly over the table so that the rest of the room was shrouded in shadows. A standard deck of cards sat in the center of the table. Chuck stood staring down at them.

In the far corner of the table, he'd set his iPod up with speakers so that pulsating bass and synthesized tones were blasting through the room. He was drowning in the music, bobbing his head to the thumping synth-pop drums flowing through his veins.

He focused on the deck of cards, then picked them up and with lightning fast hands, he dealt the cards, two per imaginary player. When he flipped them over, each of them had cards that perfectly added to twenty-one.

Licking his lips, he gathered the cards, shuffled, dealt again, and this time got them all to add up to seventeen.

Chuck shut his eyes and split the deck into four even stacks. With his eyes still shut, he began shuffling the stacks around the table, sliding them all back into one stack and dealing the cards again. When he opened his eyes, each 'player' had two cards that added up to different numbers.

He slammed two cards down in front of him, face-up. An ace and a four.

"Hit," he breathed, slamming the other card down. It was a five.

He grinned and nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the sound of slow clapping break through his music. Chuck spun around and saw Walker standing in the doorway, light from the hallway streaming in around her and giving her a sort of angelic glow.

She smirked and walked further into the room as he blindly reached out to press pause on his iPod, stopping the music but knocking the speakers and iPod clear off the table in the process. Walker wrinkled her nose in a wince and twisted her lips to the side in a half-assed attempt not to laugh at him.

"Uh, h-hi. There's more where that came fro—You know, I bet it's not broken. This table isn't very high. Hi there. Walker." He gave her a sheepish wave, a couple of cards slipping out of his sleeve and fluttering to the ground. When he failed to catch any of them by flailing his hands wildly, he slumped to the ground in defeat and draped his arms over his bent knees, letting his head fall forward with a hollow-sounding thump.

He picked up his head when he heard laughter. It was a wonderful sound, in spite of the embarrassment. He looked up through his eyelashes at her as she walked closer, kneeling down to pick up his scratched iPod and speakers. She set it back on the table and rounded it to stand over him.

"How's the, uh, card stuff coming?" she asked, still highly amused as her voice cracked.

"It's okay."

"Okay?" She put her hands on her hips and he glanced up at her, taking in her dark blue jeans, white blouse and brown button-up waistcoat. She had her hair pulled back into a messy bun at her neck and a newsboy cap that matched the waistcoat.

The woman was a walking fashion icon. She must have noticed him looking because she smirked again. _That damn smirk._

"Uh…" He swallowed. "Yeah, okay."

The smirk died. "Chuck, you can't be _just okay_ at this. You are the most important part of the con. The rest of us will be there to support the chicanery—"

"Chicanery?" he snerked.

"Shut up. I'm serious. If you don't have this down, we can't go through with it. And I won't be happy." He felt the air stale around him as he sobered and nodded, accepting her hand to help him to his feet. "You won't like me when I'm unhappy, Chuck."

He nodded. "I've got it. I won't let you down."

"You better not. And try it without the loud music. You can't blast your weird neo-eighties music in the gambling house. Not exactly the thing to foster a professional environment." She walked to the other side of the table, swung a nearby chair up to it and sat backwards, leaning her arms on top of the backrest. "Hit me with the best you've got."

"Can you count cards?" he asked, already shuffling the deck.

"No."

He nodded and dealt himself his first card face-up, then dealt her two cards. Her eyes flashed up to him and she raised an eyebrow. He flipped her cards so that they were face-up as well. She had thirteen.

"Hit."

He dealt her a third card which put her at nineteen.

Then he took a deep breath and dealt himself a second card face-down. Their eyes met with similar smirks when he flipped the card. He almost laughed he was so relieved. It had worked. He had twenty.

"Good," she said. "Don't forget the conversation. The other boys will be doing most of that, but just in case." He nodded. "Now do it again, but this time slip the card."

"What do you mean?"

"Sleight-of-hand. Legerdemain. Whatever you want to call it. I want to see you try to slip a card. Cheat me, Chuck."

There was something covertly sexual about the way she said that last little part. Or maybe he was imagining it. Nevertheless, sweat gathered in his palms. This would not do. How was he supposed to fool professional gamblers with sweaty palms? And Walker would be in the room with him.

_Jesus! Everything rides on my ability to perform._

"Fine," he murmured, wiping his hands on his pants and taking a deep breath. He gathered the cards, shuffled expertly, and dealt his first card, then both of hers in front of her.

"So, how are things going downstairs?" he asked conversationally. He had a seven. He flipped her cards. A nine and a five.

" _That_ , I'm pleased to say, is going very well. It almost looks like a workable room. Another day or three and we'll have it in tip-top shape, I think."

He felt the card in his sleeve pressing tightly against his wrist, heavy and limp. Would the other players know the card was slipped in if it was a bit warmer than the others? Or soggy from sweat? Would they call him out?

Then what?

But he kept his face impassive as he dealt himself a second card. "That's good. When I first found it, it looked like straight out of the Addams Family." She let out an amused huff.

Chuck flipped the second card. It was a ten. That left him with seventeen. His eyes flicked up to hers. "Hit or stay, Madame?"

She smirked and looked down at her cards that added up to fourteen. If her third card was above seven, she'd bust. Unless, of course, it was an ace. "Hit me."

Chuck smacked his hand down onto the deck, the force sliding the card out of his sleeve and into his palm so quickly that he wasn't even sure if it worked. He set the card in front of her and flipped it. Relief flooded through him. "Nine. I'm sorry, Madame, but that's twenty three."

With the smallest of smiles, she looked down at her busted hand and stood from the table. "I think it's safe to say we're in good hands with you dealing, Chuck."

"That's Charles, if you please," he drawled in the British accent he'd used during a job in Southampton two years before.

"Going for the whole James Bond thing, I see?" she asked, sliding her cards over the table to him and watching as he picked up the deck, shuffling the cards again. "Don't forget you're just the dealer. Even though you're an instrumental part of this job, it shouldn't appear that way to anyone. You deal the cards and that's it."

"Well, we _are_ in London," he said without the English accent.

"Fair point. Chuck…" She paused, setting her hands against the table and leaning forward a bit, the newsboy's bill casting a shadow over her gray-blue eyes. "Can you do this? I'm asking you seriously. Because—"

"Look," he started defensively. "I came up with this job, I traveled the whole freaking planet searching for the right people, stalked you—"

"You stalked me?" She raised an eyebrow and smirked.

"Y-Yes. I did. _Everybody_ , so you can come down off of Ego Mountain." He matched the fake smile she plastered on her face and continued. "I didn't plan this for the last two months to get cold feet a few days before the actual con takes place and bow out. Give me a little more credit than that."

"Well, we can't have you—"

"Listen, Walker, I know I don't go waving guns in peoples' faces when they confuse me or piss me off," he started, watching her features harden, but he continued anyway, "but I take my job seriously. I'm not some rich boy looking for a thrill. This is how I make my living. This job goes down the drain and I miss a few meals. You get that?" He matched her hard look and hoped he hadn't pushed her into her dark place again.

He watched her waver for a moment, never once looking away from her eyes. And then the hardness was gone and her eyebrow lifted in what looked to be surprise.

Walker held up her hands defensively. "Okay, okay. But…since it's just the two of us in here at the moment, Chuck, I have to ask you something."

"Shoot." She gave him a look. "Not literally. I know how excited you get about throwing that word around."

She twisted her mouth to the side, again to hide a genuine smile that he wished she'd let him see. He was tired, a bit rundown, and a real smile from Walker would do him wonders. But he'd take what he could get.

"Did you seriously track me across Europe for this job, only to dress me up in a skimpy cocktail waitress outfit and prance about wiggling my tits at our marks to distract them?"

Chuck opened his mouth to protest, but realized she was right. Fighting a losing battle against the blush tingeing his face, he shrugged. "That makes it sound bad."

"That really _is_ why you brought me here?" A dangerous scowl spread over her face and she leaned closer. "Are you serious? I thought there was more to this and you just weren't telling the others. You wanted to get me into a skimpy outfit because you liked what you saw four months ago and wanted to see it again. You're infatuated with me."

" _What?!_ "he snapped. "No!"

_A little, yes._

She gave him a look.

"I need you to be in that room with me and there was nothing else I could think of."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why…both of the things you said."

"I don't remember what I said." He was lying.

She rolled her eyes and he couldn't stop the cheeky grin, as tiny as it was. "There's no way I can justify a beautiful woman being in that room unless she's serving drinks."

"Well, _that's_ not sexist at all." He wondered if the disappointment he saw flash in her eyes was sincere. And if it was, what did that mean, exactly? If she cared enough to be disappointed when she thought he was being sexist…that meant she had high expectations of him. So many happy things were happening at once inside of him, but he stamped it all out by convincing himself he'd imagined the disappointment. Or maybe she was faking it. Maybe she was playing him.

"Come on, Walker. These guys are all huge douche bags. If they came in here and a woman was sitting at the table—"

"Women can't gamble professionally?" she challenged.

"Of course they can! And they do! I'm just saying these guys don't feel the same way. I did a lot of work getting to know them better than I know my own friends."

"You have friends?"

"Yeah, that was funny the first time you said it."

She snorted nevertheless, and Chuck found it extremely cute.

"If I could have you sitting at the table, I'd much prefer that, I swear it." He leaned a little closer until there were only a few inches between them, and he wasn't at all surprised when she didn't retreat from his closeness. Chuck was pretty certain she could take him out in the blink of an eye anyways, so what did it matter to her if he invaded her personal space a little?

"Think of it this way," he continued. "If there were a way we could make you one of the players at the table, I'd be all for it, because then you'd be sitting right in front of me the entire time."

_Oh my God, that was so corny. You are_ not _James Bond. You're an idiot, Chuck Bartowski._

Walker shook her head and smirked. "Wow. Good one," she deadpanned, moving so close that their noses were almost brushing. Chuck had to resist the temptation to jump back from her to calm his racing heart. "All you needed was someone with a big enough pair of tits. You say you think I'm the best? Then I'm absolutely wasted in this job."

"I need _you_."

"Why me?"

"Because I don't trust any of those guys like I trust you…against my better judgment, I might add, because you have a tendency to be more than a little frightening. And you're kind of insane. Not to mention your vampiric way of eating oranges." She made a weirded out face. "It's true! You take off a patch of the peel 'til you get to the pulp and then you suck the orange dry slowly. Like a vampire. It's really sexy and impressive and stuff but it defeats the purpose of the inherent sharing nature of the fruit."

He paused, realizing what he just said out loud, and realizing the implications—that he watched her eat sometimes when they had down time. And watched her anyways whenever he could. It was difficult not to. So he continued, pretending not to notice everything he'd just realized dawning on her own pretty face.

"You're always threatening to shoot me which is…unnerving, to say the least. And you're dangerously stunning. It's—" He swallowed. "It's almost incapacitating. And I'm honestly nervous that no one will be able to do their job properly with you hovering around. But all of those things—Well, it's a chance I'm willing to take because I need you to have my back. I _need_ the best to make sure this all goes according to plan."

He could see by the way her eyes were fastened on his, her body still, and her head cocked a little, that he'd gotten her full attention, so he continued.

"Yes, you'll be wearing an outfit that will serve to distract the marks. And I'm sorry about that. I am. It's by no means a reflection of your abilities as a con artist. And I'm sorry you'll have to lug around the drinks. But I know you can persuade anybody to do just about anything you tell them to do." She gave him a look. "What? It's true! So while you're refilling their drinks, I'll be cheating them, and—this is the part I was going to tell you in private—I need you to make sure no one is cheating me."

"Isn't that what Casey and Jeffster are for?"

"Y-Yeah." He took a deep breath. "I need you to make sure they aren't playing us either. I need you to be my fixer if they are."

Realization dawned in her features and she smiled a little, looking down at the table and standing up straight. "Wow, Chuck. No faith in your team, huh?"

"I'm just playing it safe."

"And what about me?"

"What about you?"

"Who's gonna be watching me?" She shrugged. "You know, to make sure I'm not playing a game."

Chuck shrugged. "I guess nobody."

She raised her eyebrows and the smile disappeared. "Hm. That might not be very smart."

"Thanks for the warning." He smiled and slipped the card deck into his jeans' back pocket. She just watched him for a moment and slowly dragged a finger across the table top. Without another word, she walked out of the room and he was left watching her until she disappeared into the hallway.

Trust was a risky thing in the con game. And Walker had a multitude of sides to her that most of the time left him completely overwhelmed, and something dangerous and volatile beneath that he couldn't quite put a finger on… _yet_. So why did he feel like he could count on her to back him up? She even warned him not to trust her, in not so many words. He couldn't help but wonder if he trusted her because he liked her, because she was the most stunning thing he'd ever seen, because he was incredibly attracted to her, and because she was powerful and, frankly, the most epic person he'd ever met.

It was possible. It was probable.

And he was likely making a terrible mistake.

But as he turned off the light and engulfed the room in darkness, he found he didn't care all that much.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

“Our first target is Earl Harris the Second, heir apparent to Harris and Soames Tea products—”

“I like coffee anyways,” Lester said, getting a fist bump from Jeff. Their fists missed each other as neither of them bothered to look, so Chuck continued as though none of it had ever occurred. 

“Junior, here, has a bit of a problem with the ladies, and by ladies, I mean ladies of the night, and by ladies of the night, I mean—”

“I think we get it, Moron,” Casey grunted.

“Right.” Chuck made a face at the man sitting to his left as though he’d tasted something bitter, then turned back to the powerpoint. “He’s also an idiot. He invested in Grünka Spoons because some dickwad friend of his gave him an _inside tip_ ,” Chuck made air quotes beside his head, “and he ended up losing his father’s company a nice, solid million when the company went belly-up. Which, you know, isn’t that much in the scheme of things, as people, you know, like tea in England. H&S makes wicked bank.”

“He’s a sucker,” Rye interjected. “I like this.”

“Right, well…he’s the easy one.” Chuck tapped the right arrow key on his laptop keyboard. A man in his mid-thirties popped up onscreen. 

“Whoa, we’re conning the Spartan king?” Lester asked. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Yes, Lester. Thank you. He _does_ resemble Gerard Butler who played Leonidas in _300_. Very observant. This, however, is not the Spartan king. His name is Farley Holliwell and he’s not as much of a sucker as Grünka Spoons Harris.” He went into his briefcase and pulled out a manila folder, tossing it onto the table in front of him and thrusting it into the middle where everyone could see. “This is Farley’s criminal record that doesn’t exist.” He flipped the folder open, revealing pages of information with the lines blacked out so that the only words visible were prepositions like to, a, the, it, by, and for. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Walker raised her gaze from the folder and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. She spoke up for the first time since the meeting started. “And you’re showing us this because…?”

“Because he’s a bad boy. And he’s got the entirety of HoliTech backing him in his…mmm, let’s call them adventures, shall we?” He flipped a couple of pages over and revealed photographs of people with welts on their faces, scratches, black eyes, mangled features…all of them wince-worthy.

“Jesus Christ, it looks like somebody brought brass knuckles to this guy’s nose,” Big Mike said. 

“That’s because somebody _did_. Somebody was Farley Holliwell.”

“Damn,” Big Mike said, pushing his half-eaten sub away, then thinking twice and pulling it back to take another bite. 

“He kicks ass for fun. He beats on people, women and men alike, he’s an alcoholic, has numerous DUIs he hasn’t done time for…but he’s drug-free since 2003, so I guess that’s good.”

Rye snorted.

“But the thing we’re most interested in is his gambling addiction. And the enormous ego that comes with it. You send this bastard an invite for an exclusive, hush-hush, underground card party and he wouldn’t miss it for the world. But we have to be careful with this one. He’s not so easy to sell. He’s a cheater. So we’ll have to watch him closely.” Chuck sent Walker a quick look and she nodded minutely.

“He’s a tough guy, too,” Casey said. “Apparently.” He flicked one of the pictures with his pointer finger. “What if he catches you cheating and he decides to get a little rough, huh?”

“Let me deal with that,” Chuck said hurriedly. He wanted to nip that argument in the bud. He was still in the beginning stages of explaining the con to his teammates and didn’t want them already finding things that could go wrong. It would fall apart faster than a rickety chair under Fatty Arbuckle.

“No,” Big Mike interjected. “Let me.”

Chuck smiled a little at the big man and nodded. “You got it.”

“Last but not least, Manfredo Xavier. His mother inherited a fortune from her much older third husband when he kicked the bucket.” A video of the man walking out of a club and being harangued by paparazzi came onscreen. He verbally badmouthed them in Italian, waving his hands around and pushing them away before he got into a black limousine and it peeled off into the early morning London streets. Chuck froze the video and crossed his arms, looking at his team.

“Fascist, huh?” Casey grunted. “I hate Fascists.”

“Pretty sure the Fascist regime isn’t the ruling party in Italy anymore, Casey.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” the American patriot scoffed, crossing his arms.

Chuck paused for a moment, his brow furrowed, then turned to his laptop and clicked to the next slide. “Manfredo lives with his mom in Tuscany.”

Another scoff from Rye. “Lives with his mom. Typical Italian.”

“Riiight,” Chuck deadpanned, “and he spends a lot of time in London. His favorite thing is to find little hell holes like this to bust up his step-father’s fortune in. It’s a nice little kick in the pants to the old man he’s hated for years.”

“Where’d you get _that_ information?” Walker asked dubiously.

“Oh, I-I made that up. But it seems plausible, given the way he throws the old man’s money around like he doesn’t give a rat’s ass.” He smirked at her and she looked down at the table quickly, twisting her mouth to the side again.

“Just give us the facts, Charles,” Jeff said in a weirdly sober voice. “We don’t need any extra…”

“Padding,” Lester helped.

They failed at fist bumping again.

Chuck was rethinking recruiting Jeffster suddenly, but found he couldn’t really do anything about it now. Unless they killed them and dumped their bodies in the English Channel. But that would be a headache for everyone. He inwardly scoffed at his own musings.

“This guy also has a borrowing problem. Chances are he’ll try to bum a few bucks off of his fellow players. That’s only if he loses what he brings to the table quickly. Which I’m hoping will happen. If I play my cards right, as it were. If not, he’ll want to leave early and we’ll be forced to let him.”

“We only have three marks?” Walker asked.

“We only have one table. Three marks will maybe rack in around 8 or 9 million for us in one night, if history is on our side. All three of these guys have played upwards of four million at private clubs before and I’m assuming the trend will continue.”

“You’re assuming?” Rye asked. He leaned closer. “Or you know?” 

“I know.”

Doubtful looks spread around the table and Chuck felt a tinge of desperation. “Fine! I’m assuming. But—”

“Then there’s a chance we might all walk away with pocket change for all our efforts. Is that what you’re saying?” Big Mike asked, looking up from his post-dinner dinner. _Didn’t he already have post-dinner dinner? Is this post-dinner post-dinner dinner? Or maybe it’s dessert already? ___

“Okay, look. I get that there’s a slim chance they might not play as high as they normally do. A very slim chance. But let’s be realistic here, guys! When is a con ever a sure thing? When do you walk into the bank knowing you’re gonna get the pay out without getting a bullet in your chest? Have you conned a wealthy sheik recently, Rye?”

“Erm…” He gave a little shrug that obviously meant yes.

“Were you absolutely sure you were going to be able to pull it off? Honestly, now.”

“No...”

“Exactly!” He paused, waiting for someone else to take up the argument. When no one did, he continued. “So. Now we get to the fun part…”

}o{

She stood in the shadows of his hotel room, peering at the things he’d left lying around as the moonlight coming in front the half-shaded window shone down on them. His suitcase was shoved in the corner of the room and the television had numerous wires strung from it, connected to all sorts of random electronic devices. 

Video game consoles. Where had he even gotten those? Did he bring them _with him_? Where’d he pack them?

He was a mess.

She crossed to his suitcase and lifted it onto his bed, unzipping it and peering inside. It was mostly empty, save for his underwear. A boxers _and_ briefs man.

_Interesting._

She smirked to herself under her mask and felt inside the pocket lining the side of the suitcase.

Sarah Walker had never been terribly thrilled about being part of a team. Her reluctance to trust in other people went back as far as she could remember. There were faint memories of hating team sports as a little girl, abhorring the spirit of teamwork, thinking that if she passed the soccer ball to her teammate they’d flub it up and she wouldn’t win.

In the confidence game, it ended up being a bit more serious than just losing a soccer match. It was life and death, the difference between successfully pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars—sometimes even millions—and being out money and having to go into hiding for a few months with the FBI after you.

She shared control of the mission when others were involved.

And worse than that, being on a team meant trusting the other members. 

Sarah Walker didn’t trust people as a rule.

It was this distrust that led her to break into Charles Carmichael’s hotel room while he was out with Casey. 

She stopped for a moment. 

Strange, that. Casey had swept into the basement where everyone was working on refacing the walls. He’d asked if anyone wanted to join him at the pub and Chuck had accepted immediately. Casey didn’t seem like much of a social butterfly. His usual mode of communication was grunting, sniffing and huffing, with the rare single-word reply threaded in here and there. And plenty of growled curses.

And then Chuck had invited her personally, his smile warm and open. He wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that he wanted her to join them. There was no mask over the hope in his features when he turned to glance at her over his shoulder.

But she’d disinclined, as it would be the perfect opportunity to check on him.

What she was looking for, she had no idea. Something— _anything_ —that might tell her his real identity. Was he an undercover cop, maybe? FBI? Or was he just a player? Was he going to run off with all the dough and leave the rest of them in the lurch? 

A large part of her doubted it.

Something about Charles Carmichael told her that this was all on the up and up. _He_ was on the up and up…which was a ridiculous thought, considering he was a con artist.

She heard a thump against the door and put everything back the way it was with lightning speed. She darted behind the door and pressed against the wall as it swung open and Chuck staggered in, almost losing his footing. 

“Woops, hehe.”

_Is he drunk?_

He reached behind him with a groping hand, feeling for the door, until his fingers finally grasped it and slammed it shut. Muttering something under his breath, he turned in the dark to find the light switch and instead found arms wrapped around his neck and a gloved hand over his mouth.

Chuck let out a muffled cry against her hand and struggled, but Sarah was strong, and significantly less inebriated than her victim. She turned him around so that he could look at her. In spite of the mask covering her features, recognition dawned on him. “Walker?”

She stepped back and tugged the mask off in confusion. “How the hell did you know it wa—?”

“Your eyes,” he interrupted. “Did you know they’re grayish blue but then there is this brown and green crazy blend around your pupil? It’s like your eyes are the freaking colors of the rainbow, Walk— _hic_. It’s crazy.” He paused. “Except…except that rainbows don’t have brown.”

“Chuck…”

“I retract my rainbow statement. Your eyes are like Mother Nature. Gray for the cloudies when it’s stormy and shit. Blue for the ocean and rivers and lakes and, you know, other bodies of water, manmade or nature made, it doesn’t matter…”

“Chuck.”

“Green for the plants and stuff.”

“Chuck!”

“And brown for the dirt. And mud.”

“Are you done?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re so wasted.” She shook her head and pulled her gloves off, tossing them along with her mask on the nearby chair. Then she walked him to the bed and made him sit down.

“Casey said that if I drank the—what’d he call it again? He called it Pirate Piss. Which is just gross. Because think about how many sexually transmitted diseases pirates must have had. And then think about drinking their—”

“Chuck, gross! Stop talking right now!”

“I wasn’t purposefully bringing up sex, I hope you know.”

“What?”

“Sex.”

“Oookay, Chuck. Let’s get your shoes off.” She knelt in front of him and began untying his converse sneakers.

“For sex? Because Wafler, I am not that kind of boy-guy. Man.”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. Apparently alcohol made him ballsy. 

His eyebrows did a drunken dance on his forehead and he smiled lazily, leaning forward so far that his backside slid off the bed and he tumbled on top of her. 

Sarah let out a surprised squeak and caught him against her front, nearly toppling backwards so that he was splayed on top of her. Thankfully, she managed to elude that awkwardness and instead lifted him back to the bed, grunting in the process. 

“Did you know I think you’re the prettiest girl—No, no.” He shook his head vehemently, raising a finger and burping a little. “You are definitely a woman. An extremely—You’re a nice woman, you know that? Walker is a nice name for you, too. Because you look nice when you walk. When you’re a walker.” He stopped and leaned close, his face serious. “See what I did there?”

She couldn’t help herself. Sarah Walker laughed. The most pleased look she’d ever seen on anyone’s face swept over him. His nose wrinkled and his eyes twinkled and his teeth shone in the moonlight. And even though she knew he was pumped full of some sort of alcoholic poison, it left her a little breathless.

And she hated that.

But she didn’t hate it at the same time.

Shaking her head, she knelt down and finished with the first shoe. 

“You’re going to be hurting tomorrow.”

“You gonna kick my ass? Because you always say you’re gonna kick my ass and I’m wonderin’ if it’s gonna be right now.”

“No, I always say I’m going to shoot you. That’s different. And a lot quicker,” she added after a pause.

“Oh, right. That’s right. So what are you doing here, if it isn’t for my body?”

Sarah shook her head again with a sigh. “You want me to be honest, Chuck?”

“Sure. I won’t remember tomorrow anyway, so you can trust me.”

Her eyes flicked up to his. There was so much sincere humor in them, even with how wasted she knew he was, that it made her smile again. “Fine. I was looking through your things to see if there was anything incriminating.”

“Incroomidoobly?”

“Incrimi—You know what? Never mind.”

“Ahh,” Chuck reached out and framed her face with his warm, gentle hands and she looked up at him again as he leaned forward. She reached up to steady him in case he meant to fall on her again. “You don’t trust me still. And you wanted to check to make sure I wasn’t a betraitor.” 

“A traitor?” she asked, her cheeks smooshed from his hands pushing them together. She reached up and pulled his hands from her face, removing his last shoe and standing to her full height.

“What’d I say?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He stood in front of her and she was reminded again of how tall he was. Her boots had a two inch heel on them and he was in his socks, and he still had quite a few inches on her. 

Sure that he wouldn’t remember this tomorrow, she unzipped his jacket and peeled it off his shoulders.

“Hey, did you see my underwear, though? I mean…because that’s kinda weird.”

“Why do you keep it in your suitcase when the rest of your stuff is hung up or in the drawers?”

“It’s my intimates, Walker!” he said, seemingly very affronted that she had the gall to even ask the question. “I can’t put them in any old drawer! Especially because these drawers are not lined and that’s jus’ not o— _hic_ —kay.”

“Okay, it’s bed time.”

“On’y if you’re coming, too.”

She was trapped against him then, his arms around her shoulders, pressing their bodies together. He fell back into his pillows and hugged her tightly, then hoisted her close so that her face hovered above his. She didn’t know what to do, and she was afraid of what she wanted to do.

So she froze, her eyes wide, her body reacting in traitorous ways to the way his hands swept down her sides. There was a strength in what he was doing, but also an innate gentleness that left her shivering.

As if he could feel it, even in his drunken state, he rubbed her sides slowly, then moved his hand to frame her face again. He breathed her name and pulled her face down to his, kissing her.

There was a reverence in the way his lips moved against hers, as sloppy as it was, and as much as it tasted like—was that rum? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. Because no man had ever kissed her like this before.

It wasn’t lust or desire or want or need. It was nothing like that. She didn’t know what it was like. But it felt damn good. The fingers of his right hand swept into her bound hair and she gasped against his lips. When he opened his mouth, she accepted the invitation and slid her tongue against his.

Of all the ridiculous things, what pulled her away from the kiss was the soft movement of his thumb against her overheated cheek. She lifted her face from his with an audible smack as their lips pulled apart and she gaped down at him, her head swimming in confusion and something else she refused to acknowledge.

Her hands were on either side of his shoulders, gripping the ratty coverlet. And she knew she was breathing hard—very hard.

Chuck’s eyes fluttered open and she knew if she looked anything like what she saw on his face at the moment—Well, it was a damn good thing he wouldn’t remember this in the morning.

“Wow,” he whispered, sounding like an idiot from an incredibly corny romcom. It was annoying and scary how much she liked that about him.

With something akin to fear, she started struggling to roll off of him. 

As it turned out it wasn’t too hard because he passed out before he could even finish the word.

She sat at the edge of the bed and stared at him, covering her lips with her hand. 

She could still taste him. She could feel his hands on her sides. He was disarmingly strong. 

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered to herself, standing up and rushing over to the chair to grab her mask and gloves and shoving them into her coat pocket. “Fuck!” she snapped at herself. “You stupid fucking—Fuck!”

And with that, she left Chuck’s hotel room in an angry, confused, and hazy rush.

}o{

The next morning, Sarah Walker sat across the table from John Casey and tried incredibly hard not to leap at him and snap his neck in two. He was the reason Chuck had been so wasted the night before, and he was the reason… _that_ had happened.

But no.

She had promised herself she wouldn’t ever think on it again. Or speak of it. Ever. Not ever. Never again.

The door opened and a groan sounded as Chuck ambled into the light of the room, a pair of impossibly dark sunglasses covering his most likely bloodshot eyes, a painful snarl curling his lips—lips she was now all too familiar with.

_God damn you, Sarah Walker!_

“Heh.”

She glared at Casey before she could stop herself, but quickly molded it into a look of confusion. She turned back to Chuck and made sure he could see her confusion. Maybe he didn’t remember…

Chuck fumbled with his coat and finally got it off before he sank into his chair and dropped his head on the table. “I hate everything in the world,” he moaned, his lips muffled against his navy sweater.

“What the hell happened to you?” Casey asked, tossing a pen at his head. It bounced off of his curls perfectly and the young man growled, lifting his head slowly to pout at the older man. 

“I hate you. You know that? Whatever the hell you gave me last night destroyed my insides. Not just my liver or my head. But like…everything…inside of me. My whole body hurts. I feel like you poisoned my blood and my muscles and my nerves and tendons and even my…even my fucking bones. You sadist.” His head dropped back onto the table again.

“Take any aspirin?” Sarah asked softly.

He lifted his head and looked at her for a long moment. She hated that she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t see what he was feeling or thinking. She didn’t know if he was remembering the way they’d touched and kissed before he passed out.

“Yeah. About seventy.”

“What the hell did you drink?” she asked.

Chuck swiveled and pointed accusingly at Casey. “You! I am never going anywhere near alcohol with you. Ever. Again. Do you hear me, you…you Satan?” 

“I gave him Pirate Piss.”

“What the fuck is that?” she asked, curling her lip.

All he did was shrug. “Hell if I know. I made it up when I was already three sheets to the wind. But it sure kicked his ass. Hehe.”

“You know, he could have died.”

“I am dead,” came Chuck’s muffled reply. “ _Surely_ , this is what death feels like. And apparently conning people is some kind of sin because this has to be hell.”

“What, you think you goin’ to heaven, numb nuts?” Casey asked, kicking his chair back from the table so that it ground angrily and loudly against the wood floors. Chuck groaned again and held onto his head. “I’m gettin’ some fish and fries.”

“Fish and chips?” Sarah corrected.

“I’m American. They’re fries, God damn it. Chips are flat and crunchy and amazing. Fries are fries. And amazing.” He growled and curled his lip, ambling out of the room and muttering about chips under his breath.

“I don’t even know how I got to my bed last night, but I did,” came Chuck’s voice a minute later.

“Mhm.”

“I swear I blacked out _before_ the—the Pirate Piss or whatever. Because I cannot remember _anything_ past walking into the pub. Seriously. This is the worst.”

“Maybe go back to bed.” Sarah was barely able to keep the relief out of her voice. 

He didn’t remember. This meant that things could continue normally. She’d push the events of last night out of her head forever and Chuck would go on blissfully unaware.

They’d pull the con, take their share, and never see each other again.

And that wouldn’t be soon enough, she thought to herself as she teasingly patted the groaning man’s soft curls atop his head.

}o{

The nondescript black van was more of a charcoal color thanks to the peeling paint. One of the tires was flatter than the other three and there was a crack winding from the bottom left corner of the windshield up to the top right.

“What the hell is this piece of crap?” Walker asked, turning to eye Chuck who had driven her to the site. 

“You better not say it too loudly. Jeff might cry.”

She lowered her voice. “I’m serious. Why did you bring me here? This looks like the sort of place girls get brought to in movies just before they’re raped.” He watched as a shiver wracked her body and she reached up to pull her coat tighter around her body.

“It really does, doesn’t it?” They were under an old rock bridge just outside of a London suburb. How Lester and Jeff managed to drive the van down into the ravine and under the bridge was a mystery. But Chuck learned quickly not to ask ‘how’ or ‘why’ or even ‘what’ when it came to Jeffster. 

The van doors slid open as Jeff and Lester half-slithered out of the vehicle and approached them. Lester’s eyes raked up and down Walker’s slim figure and he smirked. “Bet you never thought you’d see digs like this, eh?”

Chuck resisted the urge to punch the little man across his weasel face, instead nodding his head at the van. “You sure you guys don’t have some sort of Bat Signal attached to your van that somehow drew every last bird in the world to participate in what looks to be an all-out poo assault?”

He met Walker’s eye as she grinned. She knew the plan. And unless he was imagining it, she’d seemed rather excited. He tended to imagine a lot of things when it came to Walker.

“Ah. You’re a funny man, Chuck,” Lester said diplomatically. “Usually I like a funny man, but today I do not.”

“I tend to have poor timing.”

Jeff stepped forward so that he stood directly beside Lester, then leaned a bit closer. “And besides, the only thing the Bat Signal would do is bring us bats, not birds.”

Lester raised a finger, looking a little like a greasy-haired version of E.T. “Truth.” 

“Unless they were batbirds,” Chuck replied easily, stuffing his hands in his coat pocket.

“Batbirds, Charles?” Lester scoffed. “Please. Those don’t exist.”

“There are millions of species on this planet that have yet to be discovered or classified. You don’t think batbirds could be one of them? Come on.” 

Jeff shook his head, his eyes wobbling about in their sockets. “If batbirds existed, I would know. I know the mating call of every single one of the over ten thousand bird species in existence. And batbird is not one of them.” He seemed rather pleased with himself. Chuck fought off a smirk.

“Okay, then what does the bushtit sound like?”

Lester tittered. “Charles! There’s a lady present! You should be ashamed!”

“Lester, that’s a type of bird,” Chuck replied seriously.

“Now I _know_ that isn’t true. Right, Jeff?”

“What?” Jeff blinked.

“A bushtit.”

“Sounds delicious.”

“Jesus, Jeff!” Chuck exclaimed. “That’s disgusting! I’m talking about the bird!”

His brow wrinkled in confusion, Jeff just blinked again. “So am I. With BBQ sauce? Mmm. Although not much meat on ‘em, which was a little disappointing. I prefer the creeper, personally.”

“Why am I not surprised by this?” Chuck muttered.

All of a sudden, Walker appeared at his side from behind Jeff and Lester, pulling her coat tighter around her and buttoning it again. He noticed her face was a greenish tint but was slowly normalizing as the fresh air graced her. 

_Poor girl wasn’t ready for the torture that is the inside of the Jeffster van. I should have warned her._

“Alright, we’re through here,” she chirped, clapping her hands together.

“Ah, good,” Chuck replied.

Lester narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then turned to look at the van over his shoulder, then glanced back at them. “Hey. Heey. _Heeey!_ Charles, you sneaky bastard! You let her into our beloved Loretta, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Oh, good.”

“I let myself in,” Walker put in nonchalantly.

“Right.” Chuck smiled at her, which she returned, a glint in her eye. _God, this is fun._

Sarah suddenly made a disgusted face. “Wait, _Loretta_?”

“No one is allowed inside of Loretta without our permission,” Jeff said, not seeming as upset about it as his tiny counterpart.

“Sorry, gentlemen, but we needed a few things,” Chuck shrugged.

“How did she get in and out without us knowi—She’s a ninja! Either that or she’s Sue Storm. Are you Sue Storm?”

“They’re both hot,” Jeff supplied.

“This is true, Jeffrey!”

“Wait, you really didn’t know I was in there?” Walker asked, disbelief and a hint of disgust still on her features, probably from her horrific time inside of the vehicle, Chuck guessed. “But _he_ was staring at me the whole time. With his lazy eye.”

“Jeffrey! I told you to go to an optometrist for the lazy eye!”

Chuck and Walker exchanged nervous looks.

“It’s a lazy eye, not an STD.”

They exchanged alarmed looks this time.

“Time to go!” Chuck rushed.

“Yep!”

Side by side, they hurried away from the arguing duo, completely unnoticed as they started clambering up the ravine where they’d trotted down. 

“So why’d we have to be sneaky, anyways?” Walker asked as they reached the rental car. “Couldn’t we have just asked them for the communication devices and video equipment?”

“Sure. We could have. I guess I just like screwing with their heads,” he answered with a cheeky grin. 

They both got inside of the car and Chuck stuck the key in the ignition.

“Can their heads even handle that?”

Chuck laughed and the car revved to life. “Valid question, Miss Walker.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sarah Walker stood at the top of the stairs that led to the basement, peering down the hallway in the other direction. Just inside of the furthest door, Chuck was practicing his card tricks. She’d rarely seen him during the last few weeks of preparation for the job, as he had holed himself up in that damnable room with his deck of cards.

The fact that he was practicing so close to the job made her afraid he might psych himself out enough to flub it up when it was imperative to be on his game.

So she hurried to the door and reached out to open it. 

It swung open and Chuck stood there, not yet dressed for his role in the con. 

“Chuck, we don’t have much time. Why aren’t you dressed?” 

He wore the black pants and resplendent shiny dressed shoes, but he only wore an undershirt and his curly hair was too ruffled to be appropriate for a professional dealer. “Damn it. Have you been doing your stupid card tricks instead of getting ready?”

“These _stupid_ card tricks are going to make or break this team, Walker.”

“Get your fucking clothes on and get out here. Jesus, Chuck!” She shoved him back in the room and shut the door, waiting outside for him. She had changed into the short black skirt and dark blue ruffled blouse, unbuttoning the top buttons to leave a bit of her cleavage peeking out. Her black pump heels were extremely tall but comfortable enough. She’d pulled her long blonde hair into a bun at the bottom left of her head, letting a few curled tendrils grace her cheekbones. 

The men had requested heavier makeup than she would have usually put on, like a Vegas waitress, Chuck had said. To which she’d replied, “You’ve never been to Vegas, have you?” His blush signaled that, indeed, he hadn’t. Strange for a con man to have never been to Vegas.

When the door opened again and Chuck stepped out into the hallway, she was struck by how…nice he looked. With the crisp, white shirt under the black silk vest that had a red tinge to it when he shifted just so, he looked every bit the Las Vegas casino dealer. It also helped that the black bow tie brought out the regality in his handsome features.

_Handsome? I guess…in a goofy sort of way._

Without quite knowing what she was doing, she reached up and lightly pushed one of his curls from his forehead and back into place, then tugged a bit on the tie to straighten it.

He swallowed. “How do I look?”

“Very quaint, Chuck.” 

“Don’t forget the apron.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled it from where she’d been holding it behind her back. It was black and lacy and, frankly, stupid looking, but it had the appropriate pockets for the job. Sarah tied it around her waist, adjusted it and spread her arms. “Better?”

“Perfect.”

She pursed her lips and stepped aside for him to sweep out of the room and down the hallway. She followed close on his heels. “Are the marks on their way?”

Chuck pulled his burn phone out of his pocket and flashed the screen at her. It read _Message from Rye: Salmon en route. Thirty minutes._

Earl Harris would arrive in a half hour. He was the first one they’d counted on coming to the table. They’d decided to call him ‘Salmon’ because Lester kept referring to him as Earl Salmon. For some reason, he thought the Soames part of Harris and Soames sounded like Salmon. 

There were so many things about this job that Sarah hated. Jeffster were high on that list. In fact there had been times when she’d nearly left for good, but she knew she might regret it later if she did. And worse than that, there was a chance she wouldn’t be allowed to leave. 

Then there was the enigmatic Chuck. And the kiss she wasn’t supposed to think about. And the fear that he remembered more of that night than he let on, what with the way she’d catch his gaze on her when they were in the same room sometimes. Half the time she wanted to hit him and the other half…well she didn’t exactly know, because the moment it flared up, she stomped it down as though it never existed in the first place. 

Just as she did the moment she felt his hand drop gently on her shoulder.

“Alright. Estimated time of arrival…9:03 pm.” Chuck pulled his small pocket watch from his pants pocket and glanced at it. He bought it a few days earlier instead of wearing his wristwatch, to ensure a free passage of the card from his shirtsleeve into his palm during his deals. She had a feeling it made him feel awesome or something, on top of its practical purpose. There was a certain flair with which he flipped the pocket watch opened and closed. 

“Have we heard about Xavier yet?”

He thumbed to another text, flashing her the screen again. 

“You know, you _could_ just tell me.”

Chuck shrugged and she rolled her eyes, reading the text from Casey. _Trailing Sparta. Fleet Street. Estimate 2100 arrival time._

“Okay, that’s Holliwell. But what about Xavier?”

The door to the basement burst open, revealing Big Mike huffing and puffing, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull. “Carmichael, you better get down there. You too, Walker. Professor X is two blocks away and moving fast. Jeff is just ahead of him.”

Chuck and Sarah exchanged quick looks and followed Big Mike back down the stairs into the basement that was now made up to look like a pool hall, minus the actual pool tables. There were polished wood tables around the room, shining pillars that looked like they fit in a 1930s club, and the Blackjack table directly in the center. 

The lights were dimmed low and each table had a candle lit in the center to create somewhat of an atmosphere. They set up a well-stocked bar, nestled in the back corner where Sarah would be preparing drinks for the players. In all, it was a simple set up, but she’d added hints of flair and grandiose decor to insure a professional feel. 

Lester stood by the Blackjack table, tapping his foot nervously. She bit back a groan as she saw what he was wearing. He had on sunglasses, a fedora, and a pinstripe suit, his hair greasily swept back behind his ears. _This isn’t Miami, Lester._

“Charles, Jeff sent me a message. Professor X is almost here.”

The small, weasely man shoved his phone in Chuck’s face and Sarah smirked. _Taste of his own medicine._

“Did he send you a penis emoticon?” Chuck asked, wrinkling his nose.

“What? No. That’s a thumbs up!” Lester flipped the phone around and looked at it. “It’s a—See? There’s the thumb.”

“That’s definitely a penis.”

Sarah didn’t want to know. She crossed to the bar and checked behind the counter, arranging things neatly so that she could reacquaint herself with the alcohol Chuck had stored there the day before. 

“Son,” Big Mike said solemnly, “you are looking at a penis. Not a thumbs up.”

She heard the loud snap of his phone shutting and the angry scraping of a chair against the floor. “Shut up and let’s play some Blackjack. Charles, deal me in.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder as Chuck smirked and walked to the table, shuffling the card deck in his hands. 

“Yessir, Mr. Shah.” Chuck got into place and began dealing the cards. Sarah turned as a loud clamor sounded at the stairs that led to the alleyway where the marks would be entering. Jeff stumbled down the stairs, quite nearly tripping on the last step and crashing to the ground face-first. He barely caught himself on the rail and stood up straight. 

He wore a Hawaiian shirt and jeans with holes in them, as well as brown Birkenstocks and black socks, his reddish-brown thinning hair as messy as ever. Why Chuck thought this look would work, she didn’t understand. But he was unofficially the leader, and she supposed what he said had to go. She strangely trusted that he knew what he was doing. But he’d given Lester the freedom to choose his own ensemble.

“A beer for Jeff, please?”

She threw Chuck a look of confusion, even while she was digging behind the bar for a cold bottle. “What’ll you have, Mr. Gordon?”

“Coors Light.”

“ _Seriously?_ ” Chuck asked, looking up from the deck. As Lester looked up at Jeff from the table, Sarah saw the slightest movement in Chuck’s hand before he looked back at the table. “Coors Light? Jesus…” he muttered to himself, placing the card he’d just slipped out of his sleeve down in front of Lester…or rather, Shah, as she realized she should think of him from then on.

With a small smirk, she produced a bottle of Coors Light and walked it to where Bob Gordon took his seat on the other end of the table. She set it in front of him on top of a napkin that read “Samson’s”. 

“Thanks a bunch, sweetheart,” Gordon said in a Texas accent, giving her a wink that sent chills down her spine in a bad way. She flashed him a wide grin and took the pound notes he slipped her.

As she stuffed them into her apron, she heard the arrival of another guest. When she sent a sidelong glance at the entrance, she saw a short man with dark hair and an impassive face strut down the stairs. He wore an Armani suit, charcoal in color, with a white and light gray striped waistcoat showing under the unbuttoned jacket, complemented by a vibrant red tie and Italian leather shoes.

The man slid his sunglasses off and lightly touched his gel smoothed hair that resembled a more stylish, shorter version of Shah’s hair. Big Mike appeared at his side, puffing out his chest and blowing a plume of cigar smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Signor Xavier,” he greeted, bowing his head. “Welcome to Samson’s.”

Dubious dark eyes swept the place, then settled on the table. “Yes, well…” He straightened his suit a little. “I received a tip. I think it was from one of your benefactors, Mr. Samson. _You_ are Monty Samson, are you not?” he asked in his light Italian accent.

“In the flesh,” Samson answered. “I like to greet all of my guests personally. Would you like to sit and enjoy a drink first, or hit the table?”

“It is…what you call…Blackjack, no?”

“Samson’s is a one table joint and we’ve only got one game. Blackjack.”

Sarah moved a bit closer, wiping down a few of the tables, when she saw Rye slip into the room and sneak around Xavier’s back to sit at a table, as though he’d been there all along. He met her eye and nodded once, so she rushed across the room to his side, smiling welcomingly at the Italian as she passed.

“I, eh…was not made aware that there’d only be one table.” Manfredo sounded a bit concerned as he tucked his sunglasses into an inner pocket of his expensive suit, tugging the lapels again. 

“Yessir. I like my guests to get to know one another. If it doesn’t suit you, I understand.”

Sarah and Rye waited for the Italian gambler’s response, though they were effortlessly conversing about the drink menu. “Just a scotch on the rocks, dollface,” Rye said, reaching up with his money and slipping it into her apron. Sarah sent him an unseen glare, knowing that he did it just for show, as their first mark had turned to look at them at just that moment.

“Right away, Mr. Willis.”

When the Italian’s eyes fell on her, his lips quirked up a little and he let his gaze linger, before turning back. “I’d like to see your selection of wine, Mr. Samson.”

Big Mike snapped over his shoulder and Sarah gracefully floated to their guest. “Yessir, what’ll you be drinking tonight?” she asked in a North London accent. 

“The wine menu, Miss Penelope,” her manager answered.

Inwardly cringing at _Penelope_ , she expertly rattled off the red wines, white wines, dessert wines and champagne they carried. She could almost feel Chuck’s gaze on them as he spoke to Mr. Gordon and Mr. Shah at the Blackjack table. He’d told her Manfredo Xavier’s tastes in wine earlier during the planning stages of the con. When he was feeling lucky, he’d order a glass of Moscato. If he was having a bad day, he’d stick to his favorite Barbera.

“Bring me a glass of Barbera, Miss Penelope.” He swept her hand into his and kissed the back of it. She nodded and walked to the bar, subtly glancing Chuck’s way. He met her gaze for only a moment and she knew he’d caught the exchange. Xavier was in poor spirits and Chuck would have to play his cards accordingly. If he made it so that the Italian lost up front, they’d lose their first mark before the others had even arrived. Xavier had a fiery temper and didn’t take to losing very well, Chuck had advised them, although he wasn’t really the only one in the group to whom that pertained.

As she poured the wine skillfully into the proper stemmed glass, corking the bottle and slipping it back into the cooler, she straightened to her full height behind the bar and saw that Xavier had been escorted to his seat at the Blackjack table. He sat directly in front of Chuck and looked up at his face for a long while, narrowing his eyes.

Chuck met his gaze with a personable smile. “An’ how are we tonight, sir?” he asked in a clipped accent that reminded her of Michael Caine. 

“Mm,” Xavier responded, pursing his lips and shrugging theatrically. “Non importa.”

“Deal in?”

“Si, si.” Xavier waved his hand impatiently and went into his pockets for his credit card. “You take my card number, no?”

“Yessir, o’ course we do. Money is money, as they say.”

“See, now I like that attitude,” Bob Gordon barked from the end of the table, leaning over and taking a swig from his Coors Light. “I git mighty tired of takin’ my ‘Merican money to the clubs in Europe an’ being turned away ‘cause I don’t have them…whatcha ma call-its.”

“It’s a pound note, Sir,” Shah responded crisply, growling when the dealer placed his last card down and busted the small Indian’s hand. 

“Yeah well, like the good dealer says, money is money.” He nodded once very emphatically, took another deep swig of beer and tapped the table. Chuck reached over and placed a card face up on his pile. Gordon’s hand was busted as well. 

As he and Shah’s chips and cards were swept away, the Texan groused, “I take that back. You ain’t the good dealer. I have a feeling you’ll be a pain in my ass.”

Charles Rose chuckled good-naturedly and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sir. But I deal the cards the way the fates play them.”

“Yeah, I bet you do,” Gordon grumbled.

As the game heated up, Sarah set the wine glass beside Xavier and he muttered a soft “grazie”. She saw Chuck’s gaze settle on her hand as she leaned forward, following up her arm and meeting her eyes. A tinge of red shone on his cheeks and he looked back to his deck.

It was rather flattering, but she had an urge to pinch him or kick him in the shin. He was supposed to be concentrating. Apparently he was allowing her to be a bit of a distraction. She glared a little from behind Xavier’s back and Charles Rose bit his lip contritely, dealing the Italian a winning hand while the other two busted again.

“Eh!! Now that is what you call a twenty-one!” The glee on Manfredo Xavier’s face was sincere as he took a sip of his wine and glanced at Jeffster on either side of him. “Better luck next time, fellas, no?”

The other two managed short grunts.

Sarah brought Rye his scotch on the rocks. The man glanced up at her and cocked his head a little. “How’s the Salmon?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Willis, but we don’t have Salmon tonight.” She shook her head and widened her eyes a bit. Harris wasn’t due to arrive for awhile yet. He nodded and took a deep swig from the scotch on the rocks. 

He made a face. “I’ve had better.”

_Fuck you_ , she thought, nastily. Fighting to stop herself from grabbing it and pouring it over his head, she ignored the comment and walked over to Mr. Monty Samson who sat at his own table, eating the biggest cut of steak she’d ever seen. Sarah wasn’t sure she knew where he’d even gotten it.

“Something to wash that down, Mr. Samson?”

He shook his head wordlessly, chewing heartily, then gestured to Chuck with his knife. She turned and looked over her shoulder at the dealer. He seemed to be a little unnerved about something. There was a bit of an argument between Manfredo Xavier and Mr. Shah. Gordon was watching with a sideways grin, his face a little flushed.

She saw Shah sweep his sunglasses off of his face and stand up from the table.

“Gentlemen, please,” Chuck was trying, holding up his hands. 

“You want to tell me something about my country?” Xavier asked hotly, standing up as well. “Go ahead, tiny man. You looka like a weasel!” She noticed his accent was a lot more pronounced when he was confrontational.

Shah spun to look at Samson. Xavier turned as well. Sarah saw Chuck’s hands surreptitiously slip under the table and reappear again a moment later. Then he nodded minutely to Gordon, who returned the gesture. “Monty, is this the sort of riffraff I’m to expect in here from now on? I come here for the—”

“Now, now, gentlemen, please,” Charles Rose broke in. “Take your seats. There’s no need for a confrontation, now, is there? Come on, then.” He grinned widely and gestured to the chairs. “Mr. Shah, why don’t you sit right here instead?”

Shah moved two seats down at the dealer’s bidding, seemingly glad to be away from the Italian hothead, and Sarah barely saw the exchange between the two conmen. Shah was set to bust this round, while Xavier would win.

When Rose dealt the cards, a cry of dismay came from Shah and one of glee came from Xavier. The Italian threw Shah a nasty smirk and straightened his suit jacket again. “Eh, well…some of us get all the luck.”

_Well, that went according to plan._

Gordon leaned over and hollered for another beer, to which she complied. She saw that Xavier’s wine glass was empty. “Sir, can I get you something else to drink?”

“No, no, no. I can’t concentrate.” He waved her away and she took the glass from him and scurried off, meeting Chuck’s gaze. He had a small smile on his face and she wondered if she didn’t give him enough credit. He was handling things rather well, save the Michael Caine accent. That was a little overdone. He sounded like a jolly peddler.

Sarah filled the wine glass with Barbera and set it in front of Manfredo anyways, then handed Gordon his beer. Without even commenting on it, the Italian reached out and sipped the wine, despite refusing it a moment before.

She received another small smile from Chuck. The first part of her job had gone well. Manfredo Xavier wasn’t exactly a tall or bulky man. Perhaps the wine would work faster on him than on others.

There was the slamming of a door above and Rye— _Willis_ —clambered up from his table to prepare for whoever had entered. His hands were in fists. Samson pushed himself up and tugged his napkin from his collar, tossing it on the table and walking towards the door.

She felt a bit nervous as she realized this could be the police. While their operation looked legitimate on the outside, they didn’t have a real license to open a gambling joint. Jeff and Lester had created a pretty accurate rendition of one, but if a cop looked close enough…

Earl Harris moved down the stairs and was heartily greeted by a rather relieved looking Monty Samson. Sarah turned to glance at Chuck whose rigid shoulders eased a little and he expertly dealt the next round of cards. 

“How’s the odds?” Harris asked, beginning to pull his jacket off. Sarah moved behind him to help, then took the coat to the makeshift coat check in the corner. She could feel him watching her and knew exactly where he was looking. No matter how many times she’d used her looks for her job, it still didn’t alleviate the unease she felt when they looked at her that way.

_Eyes on the prize, Walker_ , she thought to herself, hanging the jacket up and turning back.

Harris already sat at the table, between Xavier and Shah, accepting his chips and looking up at Chuck. “Charles, huh?”

Chuck tapped his name tag. “Charles Rose, sir. It’s a pleasure.”

He flashed his charming smile and received one back, then began dealing the cards once the chips were on the table. 

Minutes rolled by with an aching slowness that made Sarah feel like she was going a little crazy. She swept around the table, dealing with long looks from the players, filling their drinks, flirting a little when it was necessary…

Once, Chuck caught her eye when she was leaning over Earl Harris, setting a tequila shot down in front of him. As she asked if he’d like a chaser, the man’s eyes lowered to her cleavage, giving Chuck ample time to slip a card from his sleeve onto the top of the deck. 

As she stepped away, she heard his groan of annoyance when he lost his hand. 

“Sorry, gents. This hand goes to the house,” Chuck chirped. “But you know the game. House always wins.”

Grumbles all around.

She smirked to herself as she leant down behind the bar to slip the tequila back into the cupboard. Her confidence was building now that she had seen Chuck in action. And despite appearing to be fuck-ups in almost every aspect of their lives, Jeff and Lester seemed to be legitimately skilled con artists. Their distracting conversation, on top of Charles Rose’s ability to rattle on pleasantly without being annoying, was giving Chuck enough leeway for his tricks.

“Come on, hit.”

Willis was standing over Harris’ shoulder, egging him on. “Fourteen ain’t bad. If I had fourteen, I’d hit.”

Harris looked over his shoulder at the imposing, cocky man. Willis made a point of drowning the rest of his scotch in one gulp, barely wincing as he swallowed, and thrusting it out in her general direction. Fighting to keep from rolling her eyes, she rushed over and took it from him, going back behind the bar and making him another.

“I need a seven,” Harris muttered under his breath, although everyone in the room could hear him, even over Samson’s chewing. His eyes flicked to the left and right of him.

“Don’t look at them, son,” Willis urged. “Be a man. Take the hit. You can’t lose every time, can you?”

Harris gulped and downed the shot of tequila finally. As he slammed it back onto the table, he said with a confidence he most likely didn’t feel, “Hit.”

Chuck dealt a ten and Harris groaned.

“Next time, Harris.” Willis slapped a hand on his shoulder as Chuck reached out and swiped away the young man’s chips. Sarah could almost hear the money leaving his bank account and falling into theirs.

Casey appeared five minutes later, resplendent in a black suit of expensive cut, sans tie, his black dress shirt unbuttoned at the top. He wore a faux mustache and beard that made him look a little like a movie villain. A cigar was clamped tightly between his back teeth as he walked straight to the table and sat down at it. 

Samson burst to his feet and hurried over, setting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Sean Branscomb, you bastard! Haven’t seen your scary-ass face in weeks.”

Branscomb reached a hand up over his shoulder to shake Samson’s. “Monty. Getting fatter, I see.”

Samson chuckled as Branscomb grunted and slapped the table in front of him. “Give me the fuckin’ chips, Charles. You know my number.”

“Yessir, Mr. Branscomb, sir.” Chuck did so speedily and skillfully, before dealing his and the others’ cards. She could see his eyes dart back and forth in his head as he concentrated. It made her smile a bit to watch him work. His brow would furrow and his tongue would wet his lips just a little, and then he’d fold back into his affable persona, watching the happenings with only a smidgeon of interest. He seemed to be having fun, as hard as his brain and hands were working. Perhaps Charles Carmichael enjoyed a challenge? He seemed more than a bit interested in her, and Sarah Walker was nothing if not a challenge.

Shaking her distraction off, she set a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and a shot glass in front of Sean Branscomb and quietly watched the reactions of their marks. Xavier raised an eyebrow and Harris looked a little frightened, subtly leaning away on his chair.

Gordon shook his head. “Boy, Branscomb. You and your damn whiskey. I swear you gonna knock yourself out one of these days an’ it’ll be right at this table.” He chuckled and slapped Branscomb on the back. The larger man’s first response was to growl a little.

“Better I knock myself out drinking whiskey than get a heart attack from McDonald’s, tubby,” he answered.

The table went silent as Bob Gordon blinked once. 

Everyone erupted into laughter, including the Texan. Even Branscomb’s lips twitched a bit. Xavier looked a bit impatient, even as he smirked. Sarah looked at Chuck over the players’ shoulders and widened her eyes when he caught her gaze.

He winked then sped the game up a bit, moving a little faster to appease Xavier who was losing more than he was winning, it seemed. She straightened her apron to distract herself from the way Chuck’s wink made her feel a little funny.

The men played with a little more affability for the next fifteen minutes, and while it was encouraging, Sarah was pretty certain it was because they were all imbibing a large amount of spirits, thanks to her constant hovering and refilling.

With her efforts at distracting the marks, Chuck was keeping to his end of the con, while Shah, Gordon, and Branscomb did their own fair share of distracting. Slowly but surely, Earl Harris and Manfredo Xavier were losing their money faster than they were making it back—and she was certain neither of them even realized it.

It was after ten when their Spartan thundered into the basement. His face was set in a scowl as Monty the Manager met him at the door. With Monty and Willis talking him up and feeding him what he needed to hear, the scowl slowly eased itself from his face. When he saw Sarah, she wasn’t fazed by the hunger in his gaze. Chuck had warned her privately that there wasn’t much that would keep him at bay. He had a temper, he was unruly, and he did whatever he wanted.

Chuck promised her that she wouldn’t have to worry about the HoliTech heir causing her any harm. It was annoying that he thought she couldn’t take care of herself, and yet there was something sincere in the way he assured her that made her smile now to think of it. 

Realizing she was grinning now, she bit it back and poured a glass of scotch with one cube of ice, as the burly man had requested. When his hand grazed hers as he took it, his eye lowered to her chest. There was definite invitation there and she was certainly glad no one in the room expected her to accept it. Even if they had, she’d beat the lot of them senseless for it. _No fucking way._

As she looked up, Chuck’s eyes were steely and dark as they fastened on Holliwell, his features hard. With everyone distracted by their cards, she wiggled her fingers a bit to catch the dealer’s attention. 

She watched with no small amount of amusement as he jolted a little and looked up at her sheepishly, his eyes softening significantly. He shrugged minutely and went back to the deck of cards, dealing them accordingly with a hint of a blush that she was sure only she could see.

Smirking to herself, she set to refilling the drinks again.

Xavier was looking a bit pink in the cheeks, Shah was half-falling asleep, Harris was swaying a bit…but Bob Gordon looked just as he always had. There were ten empty bottles of beer stashed in the recycle bin behind the bar, all consumed by him and in less than two hours. She wondered if he was a human garbage disposal, or maybe he’d already destroyed his liver enough that it rolled over like _fuck it_ and stopped working long ago. He was probably a biological anomaly. Maybe she should suggest he donate his body to science when it finally failed on him.

_Later, Sarah. Concentrate._

Another half hour passed, and it seemed Holliwell was becoming furious and red-faced, even as Harris and Xavier played on with affable-enough demeanors. Chuck was still concentrating, the average pleased look on his face as he slipped Gordon a rare twenty-one.

It was curious how many risks the beefy Scot was taking. With numbers like seventeen and eighteen, he was asking for the next card, even against the dealer’s subtle hinting. She could see Chuck’s confusion and knew it wasn’t all just for show.

Why was the guy taking such huge risks? And he seemed surprised, although it was barely visible, when he lost. Chuck was sweating a lot and every time Holliwell looked up at him with narrowed, intense black eyes, he nervously looked away and down to his cards.

He even had to reach up and swipe at his forehead with his shirt sleeve once, he was sweating so badly. 

Things were taking a turn for the worse, she could see. And when Chuck looked up to meet her gaze, he looked incredibly helpless. It set her heart hammering against her chest, though she was sure it was just nerves. What was happening? Why was he suddenly losing his footing?

How could she fix this?

Chuck’s eyes flicked to her and then to Holliwell’s empty glass.

She poured more scotch and hurried to Holliwell’s side. “Mr. Holliwell, can I—”

“No!” he roared, smacking angrily at her hand and sending the drink spilling all over her front before it clattered to the ground. Luckily it didn’t shatter when it connected with the hard floor. 

Sarah had a sudden flash of an image in which she grabbed the unruly bastard by the back of his head and slammed his face into the table, breaking his nose. She kept her cool, though, instead stepping back and watching the scene play out.

_Oh, this is not good._

The Spartan shoved his chair out and stood, almost falling over from too much drink. “This bastard dealer is cheating!” he slurred.

“Hey, now…” Charles Rose tried, lifting his hands up defensively, anger dotting his features. The anger, she realized, was real. And despite the seriousness of the situation and the nerves flipping her stomach onto its side, she was interested in the change that overcame Chuck’s features. She’d never seen Chuck Carmichael angry. He was goofy, silly, and serious sometimes—nerdy, as well. But she’d never seen him _angry_.

The way his eyebrows knit together beneath his curly hair, his lips pursing, his jaw clenched. Dare she think it, he was damned attractive when angry. 

“You’re slipping me cards!” their mark roared in his Scottish accent. “So that I lose!”

“Sir, why don’t you sit down? I can assure you I haven’t been slipping you cards,” Chuck tried, but the man was adamant and close to foaming at the mouth.

Samson strode up to the table. “Mister Holliwell, I don’t hire cheaters.”

“This place is a trap! To lure suckers in and—”

“Mister Samson, sir! I’m not cheating!” Chuck cleverly interrupted. If Holliwell had finished that thought, it might raise suspicion in their other marks. Then the whole con would go to hell in a hand basket. “I swear I’m not!”

“If he is cheating, it’s because this fat blowhard told him to!” Holliwell ranted, poking Samson in the belly. Big Mike turned red with fury but not before Branscomb shoved his chair out and walked purposefully to the Scotsman so that he stood nose to nose with him.

“You wanna say that to me?” he growled. “I’ve known Monty Samson for ten years. We served in the armed forces together. I’d stake my life on his honor. If anyone’s to blame, it’s this Limey bastard.” He flicked his thumb at Charles Rose who quite nearly turned purple.

“Well, that’s just offensive. Not only am I accused of being a cheat, I’m called a Limey in my own backyard. Mr. Samson, you can’t stand for this. I been working here for three years. I’ve proven myself time and time again, haven’t I? Haven’t I, Miss Penelope?” 

For some reason, Sarah couldn’t read him. It was unnerving. What was he doing? What was happening?

“He’s right, Mister Samson. He’s never cheated before. I don’t know why that would change now.”

Holliwell spun on her. “An’ this bitch is in on it!”

It took everything in her not to knee him in the groin right there. But that wouldn’t get them anywhere. Instead, she looked affronted. “Mister Samson, you can’t think that I’d—”

“I saw ‘em looking at each other an’ winking.”

“Don’t you bring ‘er into this! It’s not true! Sir, this man’s drunk! Look at ‘im!” Chuck rushed. Sarah wasn’t sure there was much acting going on anymore, outside of the accent. Thankfully he kept that going.

“I swear he’s been fixing the game!” Holliwell spat.

“And how do you know that?” Chuck shot back, the anger flaring in full force. “How would you know whether I’ve been slipping cards? Did you see it, then?”

“No, but—”

“Then how would you know?”

Casey grunted and smirked. “He wouldn’t know ‘less he was expectin’ a certain card that he didn’t end up gettin’.”

The details of the situation suddenly reared up and hit Sarah right between the eyes. Holliwell had been counting cards, which was why he’d been taking risks. Did Chuck know? If he knew, why didn’t he do anything about it?

She inwardly cursed. What could he have done?

“Have you been counting cards in my establishment, Mister Holliwell?” Big Mike was suddenly the embodiment of his name, his chest puffed out, anger making him seem much larger than he already was. 

“Maybe I have been, but this bastard is a cheat! And his whore’s been wagglin’ her ti—”

“You son of a bitch!” Chuck interrupted, leaping over the table and tackling the Spartan to the ground, sending chips and cards every which way. 

_What the hell?!_ Sarah stepped back in surprise, watching as the Spartan pinned Chuck to the ground and brought a fist crashing across his face. Chuck looked stunned for a moment and immediately started flailing, his fists and legs kicking every which way as he tried to fend off the much larger man. 

Sarah was so stunned that all she could do was watch, her hands clasped over her mouth as Casey and Rye manhandled Holliwell by his shoulders, tugging him off of the incredibly dazed and bruised dealer. 

Big Mike was at her shoulder immediately. “Why don’t you get this trash out of my establishment, gentlemen? You show your face in here again, Farley Holliwell, and I’ll call the law. You lucky I ain’t calling them now, you cheating son of a bitch,” he finished, kicking at the air as Holliwell was roughly led up the stairs and to the street. 

Sarah looked down to see Chuck just now pushing himself up to sit, wiping his hand across the blood dripping from his nose. She rushed to his side, the shock having turned to barely suppressed rage, even as she acted the part of a concerned coworker.

What in the hell was he thinking?! 

In the middle of a con job was not the time to play knight in shining armor, especially when the damsel wasn’t even in distress. She almost snorted at the thought of herself as a damsel…let alone one in distress.

_The stupid idiot._

Her eyes flashed dangerously as she helped him sit all the way up. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You okay?” he asked in his accent. “I can’t believe he said that about you.” Chuck’s eyes turned up to Big Mike. “Mister Samson, sir. He was counting cards. Can you believe that? And then what he said about Miss Penelope…”

“You’re fired.”

“Wot?”

Big Mike shook his head, then nodded to Rye who reappeared from where he and Casey had just thrown him out. “Willis, escort Mister Rose out of my establishment.”

“With pleasure,” Rye growled, wrapping his hand in Chuck’s collar and hoisting him to his feet roughly. Sarah stood up and took a step back, concern still etched into her features.

“B-But Mister Samson! I din’t do nuffin’ wrong!” Chuck tried.

“You attacked one of my patrons, Charles! I don’t stand for that kind of behavior.”

“But Mister Samson! He called Penelope a—Well, no! I’m not repeatin’ it! It wos foul, is wot it wos!” Even with blood dripping from his nose and down his chin, his hair ruffled and his shirt pulled out of his trousers, Sarah barely resisted the urge to give him a black eye to go with it. He quite possibly ruined the entire job with that stunt he pulled. 

“And what is it to you what he says about Penelope?” Big Mike asked through his teeth.

A blush spread over Chuck’s face and Sarah felt one as well. She almost pinched herself for it. Maybe Chuck was attracted to her, and maybe he’d acted on her behalf, but to ruin the job for it—He must be the worst con artist on the planet. 

“Well, I’ll be. Miss Penelope, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to go as well,” Big Mike said, turning to look at Sarah. Her eyes widened at that. “This is an honest establishment I’m running and you bring around trouble like this…Should have seen this coming.” 

“Mister Samson! I had n—”

“It’s not ‘er fault, Mister Samson!” Chuck called over his shoulder. “We were careful! We wosn’t—”

But his voice was cut off as Rye slammed the door behind them and disappeared, his fist still tangled in Chuck’s collar as he roughly led him up to the floor above.

“Penelope, honey, I’m sorry. I need to take care of my patrons, first and foremost.” He laid his hands on Harris and Shah’s shoulders. “Go on up and get your things, then.”

She just stared with her mouth open. “Y-Yessir. Of course. I’ll go.”

As she started for the door Chuck and Rye disappeared through, she heard Big Mike immediately apologize to the others. “Oh! And Penelope!”

She turned back, her hand on the door knob. 

“Tell Willis to get Mitchell on the phone. I need him to send another dealer down. That is…if these gentlemen would do me the honor of staying. Now that the ruckus is over.” He grinned widely at the others.

“Count me in, Samson, ol’ boy. I ain’t had my fill yet,” Gordon answered immediately. “But I wanna free beer for my trouble.” He winked.

“Yessir, free everything. Gentlemen? Drinks on the house. With my profound apologies for the slight pause to the game.”

The others agreed wholeheartedly and Harris looked rather like he was confused and didn’t quite know where he was. Xavier seemed to be rather gleeful about something. Perhaps the ‘ruckus’, as Big Mike called it, was just the sort of excitement he was looking for?

“Penelope, go on up and get Willis to call Mitchell.”

“Yessir.”

She disappeared, running up the stairs as fast as she could in her heels, down the hallway, and bursting into the room where she heard the rumble of angry voices.

Rye was standing over a tired-looking Chuck as the young man held a wet cloth to his nose. “Was that really imperative, Rye?” Chuck groused.

“It was, you dumb ass, because you blew this whole shit job! You deserved a lot more than a blast to the face, but that Highlander got you enough already, I guess. I knew I shouldn’t trust you!”

“Well, you—”

“Hey!” Sarah barked, rushing up to them to shove Rye away from Chuck and kneeling in front of him as he sat in the wooden chair. “Move,” she snapped, pulling his hand away from his nose. It was still bleeding a little and she reached up and felt along the ridge as he whined and tried to pull away. “Stop that! Well, it’s not broken. Hold that there.” She pressed the cloth against it again. “We’re completely fucked if we don’t think of a way out of this and fast.”

“Yeah, you stupid nimrod,” Rye joined in. “Starting a fight with the mark. Good one. Really good.”

Sarah turned to look up at Rye from where she still knelt in front of Chuck, unaware of the way her hand was clutching his. “Go cool off, Rye, and tell Big Mike there’s another dealer on the way. He can give them free drinks until then.”

“Well, what—”

“We’ll take care of this!” she barked.

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” he said rakishly, his eyes flicking between her and Chuck. She immediately let go of Chuck’s hand and stood to her full height, closing in on him, her heels clicking dangerously on the wooden floors.

Rye raised his eyebrows a bit nervously and hurried to the door but turned at the last second, pointing at Chuck. “If this con goes in the shitter ‘cause you were too busy making eyes at Walker, I’m gonna kill you, Carmichael.”

The door slammed loudly and Sarah looked at the ceiling helplessly for a moment before dropping her gaze to Chuck again. 

“Well what the fuck, Chuck?”

“It’ll be okay. I wasn’t planning on you getting fi—”

“You weren’t planning _anything_ , obviously. I don’t know why I’m not kicking your ass right now. Are you _serious_? Tackling the mark because he called me a whore? Are you in high school? How many times do you think I’ve been called that before, huh? You think _I_ didn’t want to jam his glass of scotch down his throat and back out his ass? But did I? No, I didn’t. Because we have a job to do and you fucked up in there!”

He looked up from his lap and flashed her his sharp gaze that almost seemed to pierce through her. He stood up and wiped at the blood still dripping from the side of his mouth where one of Holliwell’s fists made contact. Now that she was looking closely, and very closely, as he was only a foot or less away from her, she could see a ring mark in the bruise on his cheek. _Ouch._

He looked down at her steadily for a few moments, as if trying to read her, but she didn’t budge.

_Why is this room so warm suddenly?_

“Anybody would have fucked up in there. I had no one behind me.”

“You must be joking. _Everybody_ was behind you.” She fought to keep her voice strong.

“Nobody was behind me, Walker. I was throwing signs left and right that the guy was cheating and not a single one of you picked up on it. He was counting cards on his end, I was fixing the game on my end. He started getting sloppy because he was drunk and losing his temper, which is the only way I could tell.”

_Shit!_ So he _was_ throwing signs. And he was right, no one had picked up on it. But that still didn’t explain why Chuck lost his cool and tackled the bastard. 

“Alright, so we didn’t pick up on it. What could we have done if we had?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Big Mike could have kicked him out or something before it got to the point it did.”

“Only reason it got to the point it did is because you tackled him, Chuck.”

“Wait, wait.” He held up a hand and cocked his head a bit like a confused puppy. It was annoyingly cute, especially with the bruises and cuts. Then he chuckled a little, which raised her ire so that she clenched her jaw. “You really thought I was defending you?”

Sarah blanched. “What are you talking about?”

“Walker, for God’s sakes! I planned that!”

“What?!” she snapped, completely confused.

He paced away from her towards the door then turned to her and moved closer again. “I saw Holliwell was counting cards and you guys weren’t picking up on my cues, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the guy snapped. I knew he’d accuse me of cheating so I had to plan fast. I had to get myself pulled out of the equation without the other marks figuring out I was fixing the game. They would have all left and demanded their money back or something. Then the job really _would_ be ruined.” 

Sarah narrowed her eyes and watched him as he licked his lips and winced before continuing, his eyes alight. 

“See, I knew once Holliwell accused me, Harris and Xavier would lose trust in Big Mike. They’d see it was a front. A charade. A con. So I had to get myself out, but I had to do it in a way that made them forget I cheated.” He paused. “The second Holliwell pulled you into the mix, I figured out how to do just that.”

“How?” she asked, silently cursing her racing heart.

“By making them think you and I were having an affair. Or at least that I was crazy about you. Holliwell calling sweet Miss Penelope a whore was exactly what I needed to start a fight.”

“Wait, so you attacked him to get yourself fired?” she interrupted, knowing she was gaping openly at him.

“Of course! Why else would I tackle a guy who has three times my body mass? Are you kidding? That guy was made out of cement or something!” he rushed out. “I knew I wouldn’t have been able to justify a fight unless Holliwell insulted the woman I loved,” he said, causing Sarah to have to fight back the flush, “so I played that card, no pun intended, and got myself fired.” Chuck frowned then. “I didn’t think Big Mike would fire you, too.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he did,” Sarah said, completely out of breath.

“What?”

“I said it’s a good thing he did.” She’d been totally wrong the entire time. Chuck wasn’t only a master at dealing Blackjack, he was also a master at sleight of hand, and he thought on his feet faster than anyone she’d ever met. She’d underestimated him…again. He’d knowingly gotten himself attacked by a drunken rage-machine of a man in order to fix the situation. It had been a risk and it had paid off. 

_You crazy, brilliant idiot._

He sighed and set a hand to his forehead. “Gah, you did your job, Walker. All of you did. I know I should have been able to do it without him catching me. Not that he actually caught me. It’s funny, you know? ‘Cause I was trying to make him win, not lose.”

“Idiot,” she teased, hoping to get at least a little of the self-loathing out of his features. She didn’t like seeing that there. He’d carried the whole damn thing on his shoulders from the get-go. 

It worked. He smiled a bit, then with a shrug, his jaw set and it was back to business. It caught her off-guard. “So what do we do now? We need a dealer.”

Sarah didn’t answer, instead walking to the corner of the room and opening the cabinet, tugging her black, nondescript duffel out and tossing it onto the table in the middle of the room. 

She unzipped it and pulled out a white blouse. “That’s why I said it’s a good thing Mister Samson fired Penelope.”

“What are you doing?” Chuck asked in a voice that very much sounded like he was freaking out. Sarah’s eyes flicked up from where she began unbuttoning her blouse. She rushed forward and grabbed his wrists tightly, looking straight into his brown eyes.

“I’m taking care of this.”

“But how—”

“Just—Don’t freak out.”

He swallowed loudly and nodded, his jaw clenched and his face determined. 

“I’ve got this.” She let him go and went back to the table, unbuttoning the rest of her blouse and pulling it from her skirt, tugging the apron off and dropping it to the ground. She ignored the choking noise she heard from Chuck when she took the blue blouse off and stood in only her black bra and black skirt. She saw him spin so that his back was to her.

“A little warning?” he rushed out, his hands combing through his dark curls. 

“What?” she shrugged, putting the white blouse on and buttoning it with deft fingers. “It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t seen before.” 

“Ju—You—Shut up.” 

She grinned widely and decided there was little in the world that brought her more pleasure than teasing Chuck Carmichael. 

“Question.” He held up a finger, still facing the door. “Won’t they recognize you?”

“Oh come on, Chuck. My face wasn’t their primary focus.”

“But—Oh. You’re right.”

“Take off your shirt.”

He spun again, seeming relieved that she was fully clothed again, even while his eyes widened in panic at her request. “What?!”

“Fine,” she shrugged with one shoulder. “Just your vest then. Spoilsport.” 

He just gaped.

“Chuck! Your vest! Now!” She finished tucking her white blouse into the skirt and held a hand out towards him. 

He pulled his vest off and handed it to her. She shrugged it on and buttoned it, but found it to be too loose around her torso. “Damn it,” she muttered, going into her bag again. She found a safety pin in the inner lining and turned with her back to him. “Pin me.”

“What?”

“Is that the only word you know? Pin the back of this vest. It’s too loose, otherwise.”

“Oh! Oh, o-okay. Right.” 

She bit her lip and shut her eyes as she felt him tug the vest a little tighter. He had one large hand spread on her back and she could feel its warmth through her layers of clothing. The other hand was pinning the back of the vest so that it fit tighter on her body and looked more like it was made for her than a full-grown man. “Got it?” she asked, cursing herself for being a little breathless. 

“Done.”

She turned to him and noticed how close he was standing, so she took a step back and gestured to the vest. “Good?”

“Wow, yeah.”

She ignored the tone in his voice as she hurried to the bag and pulled a pair of glasses out, slipping them on and pulling her hair clips out and letting her blonde locks flow down her back. 

Within moments, she had it back up and under a brunette wig of long wavy hair. She grabbed a compact, checked her appearance, and shoved everything back into the duffel. “Put that back in the cabinet, will you?” She swept past him, aware that he was staring. Then she snapped her fingers and turned back to him, reaching a hand out. “I almost forgot. Your deck of cards.”

“Oh! Yeah!” He pulled them out of his pocket and handed them to her. “Wait, how did you have all of that in your bag?”

“I’m always prepared, Chuck. You wanted me to be your fixer. That’s what I’m doing. Stay here. And, uh, maybe pop a couple aspirin.”

She almost got into the hallway when she felt him grab her wrist. “You can’t count cards, you said.”

“I lied. And anyways, I’m the dealer. I’m not counting cards. I just have to know what’s on the table. Remember?” Sarah paused as a grin formed on his face. “Told ya you shouldn’t trust me.” She met his gaze for a moment, then reached up and within moments had pulled his tie from around his neck and tightened it around her own, tucking it into her vest.

If she’d been in less of a rush, she might’ve dwelled for a moment on the dreamy look on his bruised face when she finally turned and rushed down the hallway.

}o{

Within the next few hours, as it neared three in the morning, the players were drowsy and nearly ill with drink, and the remaining marks had spent millions at the table. They shuffled out dejectedly.

She had to admit, Chuck had a point. No one had been watching his back like they’d been tasked to. The truth was that each of the marks had seemed too empty-headed to be capable of counting cards. The Scotsman seemed to have meat and anger where his brain should have been, Harris was a frightened, skittish bunny rabbit, and Xavier was too cocky.

They’d underestimated Farley Holliwell and it had nearly cost them everything. Luckily, Chuck had thought on his feet, and received a good beating for his efforts. He was crazy and an idiot, but brave and brilliant at the same time. 

By the end of the night, Sarah was certain they’d collect somewhere around 8 million or so. She knew they’d lost Holliwell’s ‘business’. It would be too risky to collect from him with the way he was thrown out of the club. The law would be on them in minutes if they came anywhere near the Holliwell account.

The house was locked up, the lights doused, ties loosened, and they all convened in the room where Chuck had stayed for the rest of the night, most likely nursing his face. When she walked into the room behind Big Mike, the gangly young man was tucked in the corner of the room, splayed on the floor, leaning with his back against the wall. His shirt sleeves were cuffed and a few of the buttons were undone, revealing a white tank undershirt. He looked rather like a little boy who’d gotten into a tussle in the schoolyard, which was amplified by the handheld video game device clutched in his grip.

He didn’t raise his intent glare from the tiny screen as they all filed in, until she heard the unmistakable sound of a spaceship crashing come from the device. He sighed, pulled a face, turned it off and set it aside, climbing to his feet and slapping away the dust from his pants.

}o{

Casey was the last one in and he didn’t stop as the others had, instead storming straight up to Chuck, lifting him by his shirt lapels and slamming him against the wall. “You better explain all of this right now. Because you lost us a mark and I don’t take kindly to losing things,” he warned quietly through gritted teeth.

Chuck let out a soft strangled whimper and nodded, sighing in relief when the beefy man dropped him back to his feet. He straightened himself, rubbing his hands down his front.

“Walker was my fixer,” he said quickly, gesturing to the only woman in the room and rubbing his throat with a bit of a pout. He thought Casey’s reaction was a little overdone. 

“What do you mean, fixer?” Rye demanded. “You almost screwed us all over.”

Chuck winced a little. That wasn’t entirely true. He _had _almost screwed them over. But he’d put his faith in them, in their ability to improvise, and when he’d gotten himself taken out of the equation, everyone had played their parts, as confused as they must have been. And Walker? Well, she had saved the day. Pleased feelings spread through him as he realized he’d been right about her.__

__“Look, we got our money. And Plan B worked,” Walker piped up._ _

__Chuck turned to look at her in slight confusion, but was smart enough to school his features and nod. Where was she going with this? “Right,” he murmured._ _

__“What? A Plan B? Why didn’t we know about this _Plan B_?” Big Mike asked, seeming to be more than a little affronted._ _

__“Didn’t think it would come to it,” Walker shrugged. “Carmichael thought Holliwell might cheat. Didn’t he say it back in the beginning? But we weren’t sure.” Chuck was absolutely confused by the way she was sweeping to his defense. And he still had no clue what she was doing._ _

__“Wait, that was _supposed_ to happen?” Lester asked. “I nearly _wet myself_ and you didn’t think to inform us of this development?”_ _

__Chuck saw Walker inch away from the smaller man at that. “And how were we going to do that when you were sitting at the table surrounding our marks? Write you a fucking letter while Carmichael was getting his ass kicked by the Spartan?” The look she sent him would have shamed the Hulk into submission. Safe to say, Lester didn’t say another word after that._ _

__Walker really had a way of making a guy feel like a dumb ass._ _

__“Look, it worked. We got our money, most of it at least, so let’s find out how much and get outta here,” she snapped._ _

__“Wait, now. Why’d you need a fixer when you had us at the table? Thought that was part of our job description,” Casey observed._ _

__“I, uh—Well, you guys were players. How would it look if one of you darted up from the table, ran up here to change, and became the dealer?” Chuck reasoned. It seemed sound enough to him. “And I needed to make sure you guys wouldn’t play me,” he finished with a sheepish shrug._ _

__“Hey!” the gruff conman growled. “This here’s a team, Carmichael. It ain’t in my nature to screw over my teammates.”_ _

__“I’m sorry. I get that now. I do. But I needed some reassurance. I mean, come on, Casey. It’s hard to trust a guy who walks in looking like friggin’ General Zod.” Chuck cleared his throat when his comparison failed to incite the response he’d wanted._ _

__“Anyways,” he continued, “Walker pulled through for us.” He sent her a short, grateful look, but she wasn’t meeting his gaze, instead looking somewhere near his chest._ _

__“Chuck needed some insurance, Holliwell screwed things up, I fixed it. _We_ fixed it. All of us.” She said it so nonchalantly, like he hadn’t been freaking out, ready to call the whole mission, not a few hours before._ _

__“Now let’s find out how much we got and get out of here,” she hurried. “Who knows if the Spartan might cause trouble once he’s sobered up?”_ _

__Chuck spent the next half hour on his laptop, Casey and Walker looking on over his shoulder, one out of suspicion and the other out of curiosity. He hacked into the bank to check that the funds had been appropriately transferred from Harris, Holliwell, and Xavier’s accounts. He force-closed the account where it had been sent and quickly split the take into the seven accounts they’d set up in the beginning at different banks around London._ _

__“So…what are you doing?” Casey grumbled from behind his shoulder._ _

__“Transferring our take evenly into everyone’s account. It’ll be there for you to take out in about two hours at the latest. I’d say give it a good half hour, though, just in case.”_ _

__“You’re doing it right now? Yourself?” Walker asked._ _

__“Yep!”_ _

__“Wait…Holliwell, too?”_ _

__“Yep!”_ _

__“Can’t that get us into some unnecessary trouble?” Sarah asked._ _

__“It could. If I were someone else. But I’m me.” He gave her a cheeky, closed-mouth smile over his shoulder then bent back to his task._ _

__“Don’t you think this is a mite bit suspicious if someone who works at the bank is watching?” Big Mike asked, panic in his eyes, overriding the next question Sarah had seemed to want to ask._ _

__“Nope!” Silence followed as Chuck continued splitting the take into the different accounts._ _

__“You’re going to explain further, aren’t you? I mean…you’re going to tell us, right?” Lester asked._ _

__“You’ve hacked in under the radar, haven’t you?” Walker guessed. “They can’t see what you’re doing. They wouldn’t notice if they were staring right at the account.”_ _

__Chuck grinned a bit in pride. Perhaps Walker wasn’t great at making fake company websites, but she was quick at putting two and two together. And she was one hell of a fixer. “Exactly, Walker. By the time they realize it, if they ever do, we’ll have emptied our accounts, closed them, and split.”_ _

__“Well, shit,” Casey grunted. Chuck liked to think he heard a tinge of awe there, but maybe it was his ego getting in the way. “So it doesn’t matter that you screwed up with Holliwell,” he added, causing Chuck to wince a bit at the ‘you screwed up’ part._ _

__“11,964,054.” Chuck blinked. “That’s, uh, 1,709,150 per person.”_ _

__“Pounds?!”_ _

__“Uh, no. Dollars. I’m just converting it in my head for you. And 57 cents. All accounted for.”_ _

__“That’s…57 cents…for each of us? Or do we split the 57 cents? Just to clarify,” Lester asked in a small voice._ _

__“Each.” Lester nodded. “As long as you withdraw it and close your account by, oh, say, twenty four hours from now, I’m pretty sure we’ll all be in the clear.”_ _

__He tapped a few more keys and shut his laptop, standing up from his seat and putting his laptop back into his bag in the silence that fell over the group as they looked at one another. When he finished, he stood to his full height and glanced at everyone._ _

__Was there supposed to be a speech here? Or maybe, like in a high school classroom, he could say “You’re all excused”…No, that’d be rude._ _

__He took a deep breath._ _

__“Well,” Chuck said. “I just want to say it was an hon—”_ _

__“Shove it, Carmichael,” Rye said, leaving the room and not looking back._ _

__“Charles,” Lester bowed with his hands together and left. Jeff followed, winking at Walker as she purposefully ignored him._ _

__With a pleased chuckle, Big Mike strode out of the room, most likely picturing how many boxes of donut holes he could afford with his share._ _

__Casey grunted and shook his head. “Good job, Chuck.” Chuck beamed. “Walker.”_ _

__The two con artists nodded jerkily at each other as he passed her on his way into the hallway._ _

__Without saying a word, only offering a slight twitch of her lips that might have been a smile, Walker grabbed her duffel from the ground near her feet and left as well._ _

__The room suddenly felt cold and empty as her blonde hair disappeared around the doorframe. He heard her heals clacking against the wooden floorboards and he swallowed thickly when the front door slammed shut._ _

__Chuck suddenly felt debilitatingly alone. His duffel was heavy with his laptop and supplies. All he had to do was swing by the bank and withdraw his money, close his account, and hitch the first jet back to the states. Or maybe somewhere along the Mediterranean._ _

__The mission was successful. That much was certain. Even with the soreness he’d be feeling in the morning from getting his ass kicked by the Spartan King._ _

__But he was a little morose._ _

__The mysterious Walker, the most skilled con artist he’d ever met, the baddest woman he’d ever seen—and the most beautiful—had most likely walked out of his life for good this time._ _

__Okay, he was a lot morose._ _

__Sure, he could track her down again. She’d been the toughest of all of them to find. She could hide her trail better than anyone. But he could find her if he had to._ _

__He’d at least wanted a chance to talk to her one last time, get her to smile, or even pout a little. Or feel her hand on his arm. Or have her call him an idiot, even._ _

__She’d been his crutch throughout the night, sending him bolstering looks over the players’ backs, seeking out his gaze when she was alerting him to something, the impressed look on her face when he’d finally explained that he’d planned it all. Having her there had made him feel comfortable. Safe._ _

__Even when she’d yelled at him she’d been in control, ready to do what she had to, to get the job done successfully._ _

__Chuck wondered if he’d at any point made her feel confident through out the night, either by how well he’d been fixing the game, or by the looks he’d flashed back at her. He wondered if she’d been impressed. Sure, she’d had to clean up at the end, and he couldn’t put into thought how that made him feel. She hadn’t cleaned up and then fed him to the wolves like she could have. He’d opened himself to it by not explaining his on-the-fly planning to the rest of the team._ _

__Walker had given him credit, saved him from being mutinied by some very put-out con artists. In a sense, she’d saved him twice. He wondered if she was even aware of it, or if she’d done it without thinking about it._ _

__The woman he’d seen a few minutes ago, pulling off her wig and vest, slipping her glasses off and tucking them into the duffel bag, didn’t quite resemble the one who’d held a gun to him in her hotel room almost five months before. That woman would never have stuck up for him in this way, swept to his rescue._ _

__Or maybe she would have. He had no way of knowing, really._ _

__The mystery was still there. Even after working with her for almost a month on this con, he knew absolutely nothing about her save the little things he saw in her eyes, and the way she ate an orange. It was still the strangest thing he’d ever seen, a quirk about her he’d not forget any time soon._ _

__But then…_ _

__None of this mattered. He’d never see her again. She’d be the woman who never strayed far from his thoughts—the woman he thought about in the silence of his room at night just before falling asleep, wondering what she was doing, where she’d gotten to, if she was alright._ _

__And when next he found himself in a situation in which he was kissing some other woman, he’d think about the two kisses he’d shared with her. One of them was rather hazy still, as he’d been two sheets to the wind at the time, but it was there. And he would cling to it with all his might._ _

__He sighed heavily, aware of how melodramatic he was being, and left the room, switching off the light—but not before spying something on the floor in the center of the room. He made a face and stepped back inside, turning the light back on. He walked closer and knelt down, picking up a small brown leather notebook._ _

__Flipping it open, he found drawings inside of it. Extremely lifelike drawings of some of the team members: one of Casey scowling, one of Jeff passed out on the floor, one of Rye getting hit in the head by a tomato…He chuckled._ _

__That one was his favorite._ _

__He turned the page again and found a heart-stoppingly accurate depiction of himself. He was leaning over a deck of cards, concentrating. Every wrinkle in his brow, every nuance of the muscles in his arms…She’d even drawn him with his tongue moistening his lower lip, the way he knew he did when he was thinking hard._ _

___She?_ _ _

__Of course. He’d known right away that this was Walker’s notebook. Of course she was an artist. She was the most observant person on their team. She could do everything else perfectly, so why not drawing as well?_ _

__As he walked outside and made to slip the notebook into his bag, he heard a click on the sidewalk behind him._ _

__Chuck spun around with his hands in fists, slipping into his best Bruce Lee pose._ _

__Walker stood there with no small amount of amusement on her face. “Ooo, scary.”_ _

__“Bruce Lee _is_ scary, I’ll have you know,” he answered, straightening in intense relief. “Have you seen the guy’s muscles? You could use them for rope.”_ _

__“What does that even mean?”_ _

__“I don’t know. I’m just glad to see you.”_ _

__She was quiet for a moment before her gaze slipped down to the notebook in his hand. “That’s mine.”_ _

__“I know. I found it in there.”_ _

__“What would you have done with it if I hadn’t been waiting out here for you?”_ _

__“You were waiting for me?”_ _

__“Answer.”_ _

__“I would’ve had to track you down again, I guess.” He smiled teasingly._ _

__Walker raised a pretty eyebrow and pursed her lips. “You wouldn’t find me.”_ _

__“I did the first time.” Chuck paused dramatically. “Aaannd the second time.”_ _

__“Cheeky.”_ _

__“Lovely.” He bit his own tongue and fought to keep a suave look on his face. Luckily, she’d looked to the side, her mouth twisting as she fought a smile. He couldn’t tell in the wickedly early morning light if she was blushing or not, but he had a sneaking suspicion she was. It pleased him to no end._ _

__“Can I have that back?”_ _

__“What?” His dreamy gaze dropped to the notebook in his hand. “Oh! This! Right. Duh. Hehe.” He cleared his throat and thrust it out at her. “They’re good.”_ _

__“Do you…normally go through other people’s possessions?”_ _

__“There’s no lock on it.” He shrugged. “They’re really good,” he repeated._ _

__“Thanks.”_ _

__“So…why were you waiting for me?”_ _

__“Walk with me?” She cocked her head invitingly._ _

__He complied and let her string her arm through his, even while saying, “I’ve got no problem walking you home, Miss Walker, but I’m pretty sure anybody who tries to start shit with you is in for a rude awakening.” He made a silly karate noise and mimed bringing his palm up into someone’s nose._ _

__She giggled. “I don’t need your protection.”_ _

__“Good, ‘cause you can kick _my_ ass, and I’m pretty bad ass, sooo…” _ _

__“I can kick your ass, that’s true. So you should step a little lighter.”_ _

__Chuck slowed them down and lightly tiptoed along. She smacked his shoulder, biting her lip and grinning. “Pull your dumb ass self together and be serious, for just a second. I know that’s difficult for you.”_ _

__He nodded seriously, offering her one last smile. “Shoot.”_ _

__“Why didn’t you tell the guys what you told me?”_ _

__“About what?”_ _

__“How you planned all of that. And that you did it literally at a moment’s notice _while_ you were keeping track of the cards on the table and controlling the game. You didn’t explain to them and you let them walk all over you. Why?”_ _

__He shrugged. “I kinda just wanted to get outta there. To be honest, Holliwell makes me nervous, running around out there somewhere like a drunken, angry tiger beast ready to strike. I wanted to take care of the bank transfers and split.”_ _

__“But you told _me_?”_ _

__He shrugged. “And what about you?”_ _

__Chuck watched as her eyes darted away and she pulled her arm from his and stuck her hands in her coat pockets. “What _about_ me?”_ _

__“You didn’t have to cover for me. You could have let me burn. Then there’d only be six of you to split the take between. Which would leave you with a little over 1,994,000.”_ _

__“You did that fast.”_ _

__“I’m good at math.”_ _

__There was a minute of silence as they strolled along the sidewalk._ _

__“It didn’t feel right, watching you take the bullet when we didn’t do our parts like we should have. Jeff, Lester, Casey—they were supposed to be watching, paying attention to you. And…so was I.”_ _

__He shrugged, ignoring the warmth flooding through him. No good could come of embracing that warmth. “Nothing could have been done anyways. Even if you had caught it.”_ _

__“How did you think of that so fast?”_ _

__“I don’t know,” he chuckled. “Luck. But I knew the other marks wouldn’t trust me anymore as a dealer, and I had to play it so that Big Mike didn’t look like he’d set them up. So I took Holliwell out.”_ _

__“Well, you knocked him over,” she replied sardonically. “But you didn’t exactly take him out.”_ _

__“Ha.” He shook his head and made a face at her, to which she replied with a smirk. “And you know, everybody stepped up, even though you were all confused. You seemed more confused than anyone else,” he snarked._ _

__He cowered when her fist cracked into his shoulder. “Owww!”_ _

__“You know, that whole thing with Charles Rose being in a relationship with Penelope the Waitress wasn’t exactly necessary. The guy was accusing you of cheating. That’s reason enough to take him out.”_ _

__Chuck was silent for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, before he shrugged. “Nah, Charles Rose isn’t a fighter. He’s a gentleman, the type of bloke who’d throw himself on a fire to protect the honor of a lady, especially the lady he loves.” He melodramatically placed a hand over his heart, then grinned and fell back into a normal state. “It would’ve been way out of character if I’d attacked Holliwell because he accused me of cheating, and it was perfectly in character that I did it because he called my girl a whore.”_ _

__“I guess so,” she said quietly, looking out to the street, her face turned away from him. “Don’t get me wrong. I still think you’re an idiot. But…I’m also, um…a little impressed. I kind of thought you were a sucker. And I thought you’d lost your mind. In over your head. All of that. But you seriously controlled that game, even when you saw Holliwell was counting cards. You’re not…any of those things I said, I guess.” Walker paused. “Except for the idiot part.”_ _

__Chuck laughed loudly. “Oh, thanks.”_ _

__She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “You’re really good at this. I mean, you really pulled this off.”_ _

__“I had help.”_ _

__“Chuck, I need a partner.”_ _

__He stopped walking completely, his face going slack and his heart hammering in his chest. She turned and faced him, waiting patiently, her pretty features impassive._ _

__“Pardon?” he asked softly._ _

__“I need a partner.”_ _

__“You have another con job you’re looking into?”_ _

__“No, not yet.”_ _

__“Then what do you need—” He stopped and felt a smile grow on his face._ _

__Walker’s eyes widened and she shook her head quickly. “Not—Not like that. I mean a real, professional partnership. I need someone who’s as good with technology as you are, a computer nerd, someone who can improvise…And there are so many jobs that would be easier to do if there were two of us.”_ _

__He pushed his excitement down and shoved it away into the deepest recesses of his heart, almost as if it hadn’t been there in the first place. He forced himself to develop a business-like tone. “Married couples don’t garner as much suspicion as a lone con artist.”_ _

__“Right! Exactly.” She paused. “You and I, we’re good con artists on our own—maybe even great ones—but think about what it would be like if we were partners.”_ _

__Chuck felt a light ignite inside of his chest as he imagined them as partners. He’d seen movies about spy couples. He knew what that entailed._ _

__When he didn’t answer, she continued. “We’re better as a team.”_ _

__He smiled a little. “You trust me enough for something like this? Being partners in crime? Con artists aren’t really known for being trustworthy, you know. I technically could have moved all the money into my own account, called it kosher, and left the rest of you in the lurch.”_ _

__“You didn’t, though.”_ _

__“No, but damn tootin’ I could have.”_ _

__“Nice phrase, but, uh, I think I’m willing to give you a trial period. We could really do some damage, the two of us.”_ _

__“Mayhem,” he answered seriously. He tried not to think of the future, of what might happen between them, lest he get too giddy and cause her to change her mind. He could be professional. They’d be a team. They’d take over the world._ _

__She’d stay in his life. Professional-like._ _

__“Good. Then…first thing’s first.” She took a deep breath. “I’m Sarah. Sarah Walker.”_ _

__He shook her hand with a grin he couldn’t contain._ _

__“Chuck—”_ _

__“Hm, surprise surprise,” she interrupted._ _

__“Chuck Bartowski.”_ _

__They turned and walked arm in arm down the streets of London, their bags soon to be full of money, their futures uncertain._ _

__And it suited them both just fine._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading Con Game Gamblers! Thus concludes this arc! Hope you enjoyed!


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